Author: Hunanian Jack

In a new report accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal, astronomers with the announce the discovery of a previously undocumented galaxy, reports. 

The galaxy, argued to be the absolute brightest thus far discovered in the young cosmos, was named CR7. If this moniker sounds familiar, this is because it is also the nickname of Cristiano Ronaldo.

The Portuguese footballer now shares his name with one of the first galaxies to have come into being in the aftermath of the Big Bang. Yet another reason to be jealous of him.

“The nickname was inspired by the great Portuguese footballer, Cristiano Ronaldo, who is known as CR7,” the European Southern Observatory astronomers who found the galaxy write in their report.

Thus, CR7 stands for COSMOS Redshift 7, with COSMOS being the name of a patch of sky in the constellation Sextans and redshift being a measure of a galaxy’s distance to our planet and its age.

“The higher the redshift, the more distant the galaxy and the further back in the history of the Universe it is seen,” scientists explain. With a redshift of 7, CR7 is one of the oldest galaxies.

The 10th Congress of the Youth of the European People’s Party (YEPP) adopted a Resolution recognizing and condemning the genocides of Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians.

In the Resolution the YEPP calls on the member states of the European Union and the Council of Europe, as well as the international organizations to recognize and restore the historic justice in memory of the victims of the genocides of Armenians, Pontic Greeks and Assyrians.

“All interested parties recognize the genocide of Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians, and accept April 24 and May 19 as the Days of Remembrance of the Armenian and Greek Genocides,” the document reads.

The 10th Congress of the Youth of the European People’s Party was attended by more than 250 young leaders from more than 40 countries, including the Youth Organization of the Republican Party of Armenia headed by its President Karen Avagyan.

The Resolution submitted by the Greek party was adopted unanimously and was backed by delegates of the countries that have not yet recognized the Armenian Genocide.

Global realities and challenges were in the spotlight of the YEPP Congress held under the slogan “A stronger Europe in a Changing World.

YEPP is the largest youth organization in Europe, which brings together more than 1.6 million young people from 57 political parties representing 40 countries.

At least 43 people have been killed and 20 injured in a gun attack on a bus carrying Ismaili Shia Muslims in the Pakistani city of Karachi, police say, the BBC reports.

A police official said six gunmen on motorcycles stopped the bus and fired indiscriminately at passengers.

Prime Minister Muhammad Nawaz Sharif has condemned the attack and ordered an investigation.

A splinter group of the Pakistani Taliban called Jundullah has said it carried out the attack.

About 60 people were on board the bus when it was stopped in the Safoora Goth area of Karachi on its way to an Ismaili Shia place of worship, police said.

A major earthquake has struck eastern Nepal, two weeks after more than 8,000 people were killed in a devastating quake, the BBC reports.

The latest earthquake hit near the town of Namche Bazar, near Mount Everest.

The US Geological Survey said it had a magnitude of 7.3. An earthquake on 25 April, centred in western Nepal, had a magnitude of 7.8.

The latest tremor was felt as far away as the Indian capital Delhi, as well as Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh.

Strong tremors were felt in the capital of Nepal, Kathmandu, which was badly damaged in last month’s earthquake.

The epicentre of the latest earthquake was 83km (52 miles) east of Kathmandu, in a rural area close to the Chinese border.

Armenian National Assembly Chairman Galust Sahakyan’s meeting with the Speaker of Parliament of unrecognized South Ossetia Anatoly Bibilov was of private character, Head of the Public Relations and Mass Media Departmnet of the National Assembly of Armenia Arsen Babayan told Armenpress

The delegation headed by the Speaker of Parliament of South Ossetia was in Nagorno Karabakh to observe the parliamentary elections. Anatoly Bibilov arrived in Artsakh at the invitation of NKR Parliament Speaker Ashot Ghulyan and had a meeting with NKR President Bako Sahakyan, according to the website of South Ossetia’s Parliament

The official press release also refutes the statement that the delegation headed by Bibilov had been invited by Armenian Parliament Speaker Galust Sahakyan.

Media Moguls: On the Trail of Armenian TV Owners; Foreign and Domestic

[ 2010/05/17 | 15:18 ]
Feature Stories media
Edik Baghdasaryan

Owing to its large audience and influence on the viewer,TV has become
an important weapon in the strugle being waged foreconomic and
politcal power. The ruling elites have realized that the impact of the
print media in the country has waned and that it is TV broadcatsers
who actually help shape public opiniomn.

After the 1998 elections, the regime started to take the broadcast
media `under its wing’. During the ensuing years the regime has
succeeded, by using all the leverage at its disposal, to establish
widespread supervision of TV broadcasters, by prior `selection’ of
station owners. To speak about the independence of TV broadcasting in
Armenia today would be fallacious.

Practically all TV stations are subject to state monitoring. This
issue has bee raised for many years now, and not just in Armenia.
Various international organizations have also reached the same
conclusion. I say `practically’ all since there are at least two TV
stations that do not submit to the `Center’. I will come to them
later.

The news and political programming of TV stations is monitored and
supervise from the one center; the presidential office. This
dependency on the center becomes especially evident during election
campaigns as well as during times of political tensions.

What would happen if these stations did not submit or follow the
dictates from the center. To give a specific answer we must clarify
how the TV stations operating today came to be and how they received
public broadcasting rights. Just as important, we must understand who
the real owners of these stations are.

According to information from the Ministry of Justice, some of
Armenia’s TV stations are financed by foreign capital sources.

Some of the information regarding these companies is not available
publicly since they are closed joint corporations. We sent a letter of
inquiry to Grigor Amalya, President of the National Commission on
Television and Radio (NCTR) for some information on these companies.

We wanted to know, in particular, if the NCTR knew anything about the
foreign capital connection. We pointed out the fact that one of the
founders of one of the TV stations was a company registered in the
British Virgin Islands, considered an off-shore zone. Has the NCTR
ever taken the time to find out just who is behind this off-shore
corporation?

We received a reply from Jirayr Dadasyan, NCTR Deputy Chaiorman.

`In answer to your letter, let me state that the NCTR, within the
limits of its jurisdiction, checks the existence of prohibitions
regarding the founders of TV stations as envisaged by the RA Law on TV
and Radio, Article 17. The Committee inspects the personal operations
of the TV stations, in which are included the charter documents of the
stations.’

These charter documents include information on the individual founders
and who owes what percentage of shares. Given this information, the
NCTR can easily determine the percentage of foreign capital involved .
As to the question of the shareholders of the foreign corporation,
`Article 17 of the above-mentioned law sets no restriction regarding
foreign holdings or the country of registration. Thus, the NCTR has no
jurisdiction to clarify such issues.’ Our research has shown that the
NCTR has not clarified the share of foreign capital participation and
the identity of the founders when it comes to certain TV stations.

`Armenia TV’

The owner of this TV station is `Armenia TV’, a closed stock company.
By law, the shareholders of closed stock companies remain undisclosed
if that is the wish of the shareholders. Bu Article 17 of the RA Law
on TV and Radio contains a point about founders, saying that at te
time of the founding of TV station, or afterwards, the extent of
foreign capital participation must not be equal to or exceed the
operating capital employed by the broadcasting company This means
that the NCTR is obliges to know who the shareholder are. It is the
NCTR that must first get to the bottom of who the shareholders are and
the foreign capital involved. It is hard to say if this point of the
law has been violated or not, since such information has not yet been
made public. Then again, there are many instances of which we know of
when organizations hide such information from the public. There is
foreign capital involved in the TV stations owned by Armenia Media
Holding and there are suspicions that in all three companies the
percentage of foreign capital exceeds half.

Armenia TV was founded in 1999 by the Sargsyan family. The well known
American benefactor Gerald Cafesjian also became a shareholder in
2001. Today the two shareholders are the Cafesjian Family’ foundation
and the Sargsyan family. On September 4, 2004, ceremonies marking the
launch of CS Media, or otherwise known as Armenia Media Holding were
held. This is a giant holding company which owns `Armenia’, ArmNews’
and television stations, `FM 10³ radio and a number of other
companies. Cafesjian got a hold of the Cascade property in Yerevan at
a pretty good price with some backing by former RA President Robert
Kocharyan. Later on, he also picked up `HayFilm’ cinemas studio, also
at a good price. After Kocharyan left office, the position of Bagrat
Sargsyan started to weakened, even though he really had no long-term
plans of staying in the TV business. Sargsayn was actually thinking of
moving to the United States, the country of his patron, Cafesjian.
Information as to the share percentages held by Cafesjian and Sargsyan
isn’t public. Rumor have been recently circulating that the shares of
Armenia TV have been sold off. We haven’t been able to verify this.
According to the law, information as to shareholder changes is
maintained and controlled by Armenia’s Central Depository and one can
only be granted information from that body if the shareholders
themselves agree. By law, it is the NCTR that should obtain such
information, especially since there is foreign capital involved.

`ArmNews’ TV Editorial Board

The company’s founder is `Cinemax’ Ltd. `Cinemax’, in turn, was
founded by `Hermes’ CJSC and `ArmNews’ CJSC. The owners and cofounders
of `Hermes’ are MP Harutyun Pambukyan (52.5%) and | `Investment
Worldwide Grew Route Town (47.5%), registered in the British Virgin
Islands. Companies register off-shore in an attempt to evade taxes and
the identity of shareholders. Yeras ago, Pambukyan’s `Midland
Resources Holding’ registerd in the British island of Guernsey,
transacted one of the largest energy deals ever in Armenia.

The stock owners of Arm News aren’t known. The founding capital of
ArmNews is 140,100,000 AMD and there are 14,100 stock issues. In other
words each share is worth 10,000 AMD. According to our information,
tere is foreign capital involved here as well, and it is most likely
that one of the shareholders is Gerard Cafesjian. It is not known the
extent to which Hermes and Cinemax have a stake in ArmNews.

This is the third of the above-mentioned companies having foreign
capital. Moreover, one of the shareholder companies is registered
off-shore. And since there are certain prohibitions when it comes to
the founders, then the NCTR is required by law to know who these
off-shore foreign shareholders are. Another interesting side bar to
this story is that ArmNews was granted a broadcast frequency
illegally, since at the time of the tender there was no such mass
media outlet registered. The bid was placed by `Cinemax’, using the
technical and photo resources of `ArmNews’

`TV 5³

TV 5 is a station that is owned by `TV 5³ CJSC. It remains the
property of Cafesjian and the Sargsyan family. There is foreign
capital here as well but the amount ids unknown

`E.V.’ TV or the illegal broadcast

The founder id `E.V.’. The station rebroadcasts CNN programming. The
founding capita is 42 million AMD. Registered in 1992.e were two
original owners:

1) Luisa Khachatryan (50% ` 21 million AMD)
2) Vanderblit Prop. Inc, USA, East Wisconsin 22550 (50% ` 21 million AMD)

It turns out that half of this corporation is foreign owned. In 2007,
Artyom Sargsyan, Bagrat Sargsyan’s father, obtained the shares of
Luisa Khachatryan. Let us again cite that point of the RA Law on TV
and Radio which says that at te time of the founding of TV station,
or afterwards, the extent of foreign capital participation must not be
equal to or exceed the operating capital employed by the broadcasting
company.

In the case of EV TV this point has been violated from the start and
the NCTR has apparently nor noticed this infraction of the law.
Otherwise, it should have never allowed the company to participate in
the tender.

Nagorno Karabakh as a means to improve political image
Sometimes the Karabakh issue is discussed by those who cannot even
show this state on the map.

Everyone is busy `regulating’ the Karabakh conflict, which, as we have
previously mentioned, was settled still back in 1994. Sometimes it
seems that every politician who has at least the slightest relation to
the South Caucasus, considers it his duty to voice his views on the
settlement of the conflict. The other day `exhibited himself’ Georgian
Foreign Minister Grigol Vashadze, who declared that the situation in
the South Caucasus may explode at any moment.

May 21, 2010
PanARMENIAN.Net –

The Georgian diplomat believes that the region has a wonderful
experience of cooperation between Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey,
implementing giant economic projects. `As an example can serve the two
working pipelines (Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan, Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum); a
railway is being built, which will unite Georgia, Turkey and
Azerbaijan into a cohesive whole and will further link the Central
Asia with Europe. I do not mention the smaller projects. On the other
hand, the situation is very fragile as there are the occupied Georgian
territories: 20% of the Georgian land is occupied by Russia, 10% of
Georgian population have become refugees and forcedly displaced people
in their own homes. There is the problem of Nagorno-Karabakh, i.e. the
problem of the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. There is also the
problem of unsettled relations between Turkey and Armenia. Any of
these problems may at any moment blow up the situation in the region,’
the Georgian Foreign Minister said. Strangely enough, the Minister
forgot about 20% of the territory of fraternal Azerbaijan and about
one million refugees. Or perhaps he considered it unimportant to
mention? But be that as it may, for rather a long time Georgia has
been shying from side to side, unable to decide with whom it is more
profitable: with the Islamic or with the Christian world.

The conflict also attracts any officials that visit Armenia and
Azerbaijan. Their statements have become an ordinary mantra:
territorial integrity, peaceful settlement and right of people to
self-determination. Sometimes the Karabakh issue is discussed by those
who cannot even show this state on the map. And even if they can, they
definitely confuse it with Azerbaijan. Along with all the questions
that were called forth by an article published in the Turkish
newspaper Hurriyet about the alleged surrender of two regions to
Azerbaijan, there was 1 most important question – `why especially
Lachin and Kelbajar?’ One might as well have mentioned Agdam and
Fizuli, or any two other regions… The second question is why Turkey
so consistently indulges the Baku agitprop, perfectly knowing that the
latter is wrong by default. Islamic solidarity cannot be observed
here; rather, political dividends are taken into account. And if
tomorrow for the sake of improving her political image Ankara would
have to support Armenia, she would do it without a second thought.

For now, the Turkish Foreign Ministry has issued a statement regarding
the anticipated parliamentary elections in the Republic of Artsakh.
`Official Ankara does not recognize the election to be held on May
23,’ the report says. Well, let it `not recognize’, so what? At long
last Baku will have to realize that the existence of NKR on the world
map does not at all depend on her recognizing or not recognizing this
republic. It is as unrealistic as the belief that one day Turkey may
become an OSCE Minsk Group co-chair. By the way, this is claimed not
by us, but by the Turkish side itself, which can hardly be counted
among the friends of Armenia. `Turkey will never become an OSCE Minsk
Group co-chair; it is just impossible. Armenia is opposed to it, and
consequently this issue is off the agenda. As for the statements of
the Turkish leadership on the issue of the Nagorno-Karabakh, these are
simply political maneuvers, without which it is difficult to build up
one’s policy in the region,’ declared Mitat Celikpala, Associate
Professor of International Relations at the University of Economics
and Technology of Ankara (TOBB).

Karine Ter-Sahakyan / PanARMENIAN News

ARTSAKH PRESIDENT MET WITH APRYAMOV

Tert.am
11:20 21.05.10

On 20 May President of the Artsakh Republic Bako Sahakyan met
Lieutenant-General Enrico Apryamov, the First Deputy Head of the
General Staff of Armed forces of the Republic of Armenia.

Sahakyan and Apryamov discussed issues related to army building and
cooperation between the two Armenian states.

Artsakh Republic defense minister Movses Hakobyan also took part in
the talks.

O. SIMONS: EU READY TO SUPPORT SETTLEMENT OF CONFLICTS IN THE CAUCASUS

Panorama.am
16:50 21/05/2010

Politics

It’s obvious that the non-regulated issues in the Caucasus are a
serious obstacle in ensuring stability and prosperity in the region
and the current status-quo is unacceptable and not perpetual,"
Charge d’Affaires of the European Commission delegation to Armenia,
Onno Simons told reporters Friday.

According to O. Simons, status-quo is unacceptable as there is a
possibility of war and escalation of tension. He called on the sides to
actively get involved into the peace establishing processes worldwide.

Simons highlighted that Georgian-Ossetian war clearly showed that
non-regulated conflicts have negative impact on the EU security and
the close borders between Armenia and Azerbaijan, as well as Armenia
and Turkey seriously impede to the regional development.

"As you know, EU is not directly involved in the negotiating process
within the OSCE Minsk Group framework, nevertheless, the EU has
expanded its presence in the region and this assumes a more serious
role in the settlement of the conflict," Simons said.

"More than ever, EU is ready to support the negotiating process within
the OSCE Minsk Group framework," he said.

Simons highlighted that EU is closely watching the Armenian-Turkish
normalization dynamics and they hope the protocols will be ratified.

ARMENIA HOLDS A SERIES OF EVENTS TO MARK VAN RESISTANCE 95TH ANNIVERSARY

PanARMENIAN.Net
May 21, 2010 – 15:46 AMT 10:46 GMT

A series of events are held in Armenia to mark the 95th anniversary
of Van resistance.

The events started in April, when the Folk Art Museum hosted an event
titled "We lost Van, but not its culture".

"Trees will be planted in Vaspuranak Park in Yerevan on May 22
morning," chairman of Vaspurakan compatriotic union Gagik Baghdasaryan
said. "On the same day, a meeting will be held in Arno Babajanyan
concert hall, bringing together representatives of various political
parties. In early June, Shkhonts Mihran performance will be staged
in Hamazgayin Theater."