Category
Politics
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan signed a decision on approving the charter and structure of the National Security Service in accordance with the Law on Public Administration System Authorities.
Author: Kalantarian Kevo
Aghasi Yenokyan: The authors of the Constitution, perhaps, were looking at the ceiling, it does not correspond to our public life, it must also be changed (video)
Political scientist Aghasi Yenokyan says minority governance in Armenia is anti-constitutional.
“The authors of the Constitution, perhaps, were looking at the ceiling, it does not correspond to our public life, it must also be changed.”
According to him, the Constitution of Armenia demands the policy to be based on parties, but the party system has not been formed in Armenia.
“At one time seemingly the most powerful impressive party is collapsing.”
Aghasi Yenokyan thinks that the Republican Party (RPA) may face major changes ahead of snap parliamentary elections.
“The RPA will be an absolutely different party, maybe it will come up with another ideology.”
According to the political scientist, it is impossible to make predictions about the results of the upcoming elections, as it is not known when and how to conduct them.
“We still do not have a new Electoral Code.”
He does not exclude that former Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan will form a new team and participate in the elections, the politician believes the participation of the founding parliament members is likely.
ANCA’s Hamparian Meets With Artsakh Leaders
ANCA Chairman Raffi Hamparian (left) meets with Artsakh President Bako Sahakian on Monday in Stepanakert
STEPANAKERT—The Chairman of the Armenian National Committee of America on Monday met with Artsakh President Bako Sahakian and Artsakh Foreign Minister Masis Mayilian and discussed important issue regarding the republic’s foreign and domestic priorities and relations with the Diaspora.
President Sahakian thanked the ANCA for its continued leadership in advancing issues related to Artsakh’s security and international recognition with American government structures.
Hamparian discussed a broad range of U.S. aid and Artsakh security issues including the recent ANCA inquiry to key Congressional panels about reports of Bell helicopter sales to Azerbaijan; last week’s Senate Appropriations Committee vote to support aid to regional rehabilitation centers, such as the Caroline Cox Center in Stepanakert; continue assistance for Artsakh demining efforts; and effort to implement the Royce-Engel peace proposals, including the placement of gun-fire locators along the line of contact with Azerbaijan.
Each of these is part of the “ANCA 360” approach to pro-Artsakh advocacy, generating U.S. support – in policy, practice, and principle— for the Artsakh Republic’s independence and security, supporting the OSCE Minsk Group platform, challenging Azerbaijani aggression by promoting accountability for attacks along the line of contact, and fostering broader, pro-peace dialogue between the U.S. and Artsakh.
Armenia blasts Azeri killing of Artsakh soldier as provocation, deliberate failing of agreements 1 day ahead of OSCE visit
Categories
Artsakh
Region
The killing of a Defense Army serviceman of Artsakh a day before the visit of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs to Armenia is a provocation aimed at escalating the situation in the region and failure of the agreements over de-escalations, Armenian foreign ministry spokesperson Tigran Balayan said in a commentary, the ministry said.
“A Defense Army serviceman of Artsakh was killed as a result of gross violations of the ceasefire regime by Azerbaijan in the Artsakh-Azerbaijan line of contact yesterday evening. We express our deepest condolences to the family and co-servicemen of the fallen [soldier].
We consider this step, on the eve of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair’s Armenia visit, to be another provocation of Baku aimed that escalating the situation in the region and failure of the agreements over the de-escalation of tension. This incident once again emphasizes the importance of the implementation of the 1994-1995 trilateral, termless agreement on establishing and strengthening a ceasefire, as well as the introduction of investigative mechanisms for incidents in the line of contact (agreement reached at the 2016-2017 summits), and implementation of agreements regarding the enhancement of the capacities of the OSCE Personal Representative of the Chairperson in Office team,” Balayan said.
Balayan reminded that the Armenian side has numerously said that the key for progress in the NK conflict settlement process is the formation of an atmosphere which will contribute to peaceful negotiations.
“Such actions of the Azerbaijani side, essentially, pursue an opposite goal”, he said.
“The Azerbaijani side is fully responsible for all possible consequences of this provocation,” Balayan said.
In another ceasefire violation committed by Azerbaijan, a 26 year old Artsakh soldier was gunned down yesterday at around 18:00. The soldier succumbed to his wounds while being rushed to a hospital.
The OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs will visit Armenia on June 13.
Perpignan : élan de solidarité autour d’une famille arménienne sommée de quitter le territoire
L’Indépendant-France
6 juin 2018
Perpignan : élan de solidarité autour d’une famille arménienne sommée de quitter le territoire
Ce mercredi, aux environs de 14 heures, une cinquantaine de personnes se sont rassemblées devant l’entrée de la police aux frontières (PAF) située rue de la Pépinière-Robin, dans le quartier Saint-Assiscle, à Perpignan.
Les militants de plusieurs associations venant en aide aux migrants (Cimade, Roseau éducation sans frontières, comité de soutien aux sans-papiers, Bouge-toit…) se sont mobilisés pour soutenir les Babayan, une famille arménienne sommée de quitter le territoire français.
Déboutée du droit d’asile et assignée à résidence, la famille en question (un couple d’une trentaine d’années et leur fille de 11 ans) est tenue de se présenter chaque mercredi au grand complet dans les locaux de la PAF. Les associations craignaient que cette semaine, leur visite ne débouche sur une expulsion.
Une interprète, un ingénieur et leur fille de 11 ans
La mobilisation autour des Babayan, arrivés en France en 2014, est d’autant plus forte que la mère de famille, Hripsime, est titulaire d’un master de français langue étrangère (FLE) et d’un titre d’interprète. Elle est en train de passer son master II et traduit bénévolement pour la Cimade depuis son arrivée à Perpignan. “C’est une très bonne interprète, assure l’une des membres de l’association, Nicole Mathieu. Et son mari, Sahak, a un diplôme d’ingénieur en hydraulique. Ils sont venus en France car leurs vies étaient menacées et non pour des raisons économiques.”
Ils ne partiront pas
Au final, les Babayan sont ressortis des locaux de la PAF avec un laisser-passer délivré par le gouvernement arménien qui vient s’ajouter à l’ordre de départ pour le 11 juin au matin qui leur avait été remis la semaine dernière. “Ils ne partiront pas. Ils préfèrent faire de la prison en France que d’être tués en Arménie”, martèle Anne-Marie Delcamp, du Réseau éducation sans frontières.
S’ils refusent de quitter le territoire français, les Babayan risquent jusqu’à 3 ans de prison.
Fair adjacent to Kasyan Street to be re-opened
The Trade and Service Department informs that on June 2, at 11:00, the seasonal agricultural fair will be re-opened in the area adjacent to Kasyan Street in the Arabkir administrative district of the capital for the eighth consecutive year. As in previous years, this time also the villagers from regions of Armenia will have the opportunity to sell their products. The project is implemented in collaboration with the Yerevan Municipality and the RA Ministry of Agriculture, Yerevan Municipality informs.
Nikol Pashinyan: The vector of our foreign policy remains the same as before the revolution
Arminfo, Armenia
Nikol Pashinyan: The vector of our foreign policy remains the same as before the revolution
Yerevan.May 30. ArmInfo, Naira Badalyan. What happened in Armenia can be described as the process of returning power to the people. This was stated by the Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan in an interview with DW.
According to the prime minister, this is a change of power by decision of the inhabitants of the country, as well as “velvet”, the people’s revolution without violence. “The process and my election to the post of prime minister were within the framework of the constitution and laws of Armenia,” he said.
According to the head of the Armenian government, the events in Armenia cannot be called a “color” revolution. “It is understood that there is a great geopolitical context behind such a change of power, in our case it was an internal process in the Republic of Armenia by the decision of the Armenian people.For us it is a matter of national dignity and for me personal dignity, from outside, it does not matter who and where, should decide the internal political issues of Armenia, “he stressed.
According to Pashinyan, the revolutions that took place in other republics formerly part of the USSR were of a different nature. “After these revolutions, we saw changes in the foreign policy of these countries, and we said that in general we will continue the foreign policy of Armenia, develop relations in all directions, this concerns the Armenian-Russian relations and relations with the European Union, the US, Iran, with Georgia.The vector of our foreign policy remains the same as before the revolution, “said Nikol Pashinyan.
Manipulation of the name of Armenia’s PM is unacceptable – National Defense Research University of Armenia over Boris Johnson’s case with prankers
Armenpress, Armenia
Manipulation of the name of Armenia’s PM is unacceptable – National Defense Research University of Armenia over Boris Johnson’s case with prankers
YEREVAN, MAY 25, ARMENPRESS. The National Defense Research University (NDRU) of the Defense Ministry of Armenia has issued a statement over the conversation of the prankers with UK Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson in the name of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, ARMENPRESS was informed from the NDRU.
The statement runs as follows, “The fake conversation of prankers with UK Foreign secretary Boris Johnson on behalf of the Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on May 24 was shared in internet.
The National Defense Research University, MoD Armenia appreciates the significance of the freedom of speech and the right to share information through the use of modern digital technologies in the process of democracy development. However, The NDRU perceives totally unacceptable any manipulation of the name of the head of the Armenian executive branch of Government for the sake of various machinations. Those kinds of actions harm the international peace and stability”.
English –translator/editor:Tigran Sirekanyan
Aznavour: ‘I’m going to keep going until I’m 100’
The Daily Telegraph (London), UK
Friday
‘I’m going to keep going until I’m 100’
As he returns to the UK, Charles Aznavour talks to Celia Walden about marriage, seduction and the secret to his long career
by Celia Walden
‘I am not a love god,” insists Charles Aznavour – his warm, witty face suddenly grave. “They call me that and yet I haven’t been in love more than the next man…” a small smile wavers. “But certainly not less so. And I don’t just sing love songs either. Love enters into them, but sometimes only in the last line.
“To be honest,” sighs the tiny tweed-suited singer-songwriter from a throne-like armchair in his central-London hotel suite, “those ‘I love you, you love me’ songs annoy me a bit.
‘Caress’, ‘promise’, all those regular rhymes are so overused. I like to look for rhymes elsewhere.”
That Britons persist in casting him as a romantic crooner has long been a cause of bafflement to the 94-year-old French Armenian. Never mind that the 5ft 3in singer, one of France’s most famous chanteurs, has been dubbed the Love Pixie. Or that his 1974 song She – a hit in nine countries – has been exhaustively covered the world over (the most famous of those being Elvis Costello’s theme tune to Notting Hill). Or that For Me Formidable is a masterpiece in which a Frenchman attempts to tell his English love “in the language of Shakespeare” that she is “for me, formi, formidable” and that when Le Petit Charles returns to London’s Royal Albert Hall next month, the audience will be filled with misty-eyed couples marvelling at the enduring richness of his voice.
Aznavour says he would rather be remembered “as a writer of intelligent, cultured songs than love songs”.
It’s likely he’ll be remembered for both and a lot more besides. After all, over the course of a career that began in 1933 at the age of nine on a Paris cabaret stage, the son of an Armenian restaurant owner and an actress has released 294 albums, sold more than 100million records and been voted Time magazine’s entertainer of the 20th century, eclipsing both Elvis and Bob Dylan. In the more than 1,200 songs he has written, Aznavour has covered everything from the traditional themes of love, remorse, disappointment and infidelity to those nobody but him would dare to touch.
He has devoted songs to the vicious critics who blasted him “too little, too ugly and talentless” at the start of his career (La Critique) to homosexuality (Comme Ils Disent) and to the Wall Street Journal correspondent Daniel Pearl, assassinated in Pakistan by Islamic extremists in 2002 (A Living Death). “Politics doesn’t interest me in the slightest. It’s human issues and themes that interest me,” he tells me, “and I like to find them in books and newspapers, but not other songs. That’s why I sometimes use very odd words. I’ve used the word ‘cellulite’ in a song, and ‘armpit’ – ‘I love the smell of your armpits.’ My wife said: ‘You can’t write that!’ But I want to get to the truth of life. I think those truths are what touch people.”
Whenever Aznavour brings up his wife Ulla of 51 years, his face takes on a look of quasi-religious beatitude. “I ended up with exactly the woman that I always wanted to have,” he murmurs, when I ask how that level of passion has endured. “A blonde with light eyes and extremely soft skin.” Aznavour’s bushy white eyebrows spring up into his hairline: “Wow. She’s 17 years younger, which is actually a great age difference, and both Swedish and Protestant so if she has a problem with something, boom! Out it comes. And over time,” he nods, “I’ve grown to like it. The secret to a lasting marriage is being completely natural with one another – and always telling each other whatever it is you have to say.”
Before Ulla, Aznavour was married twice (“The first, I was too young, the second, I was too stupid”) but aside from Liza Minnelli, with whom he had a brief love affair, all the famous women in his life have simply been friends. Edith Piaf took Aznavour under her wing when she spotted the 22-year-old singing in a Paris nightclub in 1946 and invited him to live with her as part of her entourage for eight years. “But she wasn’t my type, so instead we had what we French call ‘une amitié amoureuse’. It means that you’re very tender with each other, that you like the same things and that sometimes I take you in my arms and kiss you. But it stops there.”
Brigitte Bardot has been a close friend for decades – and lives down the road from Aznavour’s Port Grimaud summer home on the Côte d’Azur (he spends the rest of the year in Vaud, Switzerland). “But one doesn’t fall in love with someone just because they’re famous, you know,” he scoffs. “That’s not love, that’s tourism. Actually, I’ve just had a painter friend of mine do a portrait of Brigitte, which is fantastic. I have one of my wife and Marilyn Monroe by the same artist.” Did he know Marilyn, then? “No,” he replies sadly. “Maybe she wouldn’t have killed herself if she’d met me. My wife hasn’t even thought of it once.”
It’s tempting to conjure up images of Ulla as a Valkyrian blonde who keeps her husband in check, but that’s far from the case. Raised by disciplinarians who made him read all of Chekhov’s plays and taught him the Stanislavski method, Aznavour has always been a man of moderate appetites – and a self-control bordering on maniacal. “I’m glad you’re orderly,” he says halfway through our interview, spotting the two dictaphones sitting beside one another on the table between us. “I’d be quite capable of lining them up straighter if you hadn’t.”
He stopped smoking at 47 (“my voice was broken from birth though, so it made no difference”, he shrugs in an oblique reference to the early critics who branded his gravelly baritone “terrible”), reads a page a day from the encyclopedia and does 340m a day in his pool wearing a weighted belt to keep trim. “Also I only ever eat half the food on my plate.” Does he drink alcohol? “Only very, very rarely. But I drink wine, of course, and champagne.” Really, he says, his only weakness is Ikea. “I think Ikea is one of the most beautiful creations in the world. I mean we could change the whole of this room in three minutes. How? With the help of Ikea.
Everything’s beautifully made and the colour schemes are great.” How did this love affair kick off, I ask once I’ve regained the power of speech? “Well, I fell in love with a Swedish lady, so it was a direct line to Ikea from there.”
That he should have written songs for Ulla is dismissed with a wave of the hand. “I have never ever written a song for a woman. She wasn’t even written for any particular woman – it was written for a TV series, The Seven Faces of Woman. There was one song I called A Ma Femme, I suppose, and one called A Ma Fille which I wrote after my daughter was born, but then when I had a second daughter and people started saying ‘are you going to write her a song?’ I said, ‘listen – that’s going to have to do for both of them’.
Because what does writing love songs for women really mean? Should I go and have a tattoo while I’m at it?” Although the farewell tour he embarked on in 2006 is gruelling (after London he has filled out stadiums in Spain, Germany, Croatia and Belgium), Aznavour clearly still relishes performing in front of an audience. He dismisses the notion, put out by his own management, that this will be his last ever concert at the Royal Albert Hall and is adamant that he will smash all records by staging a concert on May 22 2024: the date of his 100th birthday. And that will be his last? “No, no,” he frowns, perplexed. “I will do a concert on that date – and after that we’ll see. But why would I ever stop? In order to die at home sitting in my armchair? Non merci.”
Charles Aznavour is at the Royal Albert Hall, London SW7, on June 30;
‘Politics doesn’t interest me in the slightest. It’s human themes and issues that interest me’
‘What does writing love songs for women really mean? Should I go and have a tattoo while I’m at it?’
President Sarkissian praises Prime Minister Pashinyan as “talented, diligent person”
Category
Politics
Armenian President Armen Sarkissian characterizes Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan as a “talented and diligent person”.
The president made the comment after an awarding ceremony when reporters asked him whether working with the Prime Minister is easy.
“In Nikol Pashinyan, I discovered for myself a talented, quick-thinking, willing, hard-working man, with whom I have very good professional relations. My impression is – we have bilateral respectful and constructive businesslike relations. I don’t see any problem whatsoever in working with him, on the contrary, I believe that we can work together very good,” Sarkissian said.