Author: Karagyozian Lena

A new study released today by IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, shows that improvements in productivity, output quality, and food safety standards, combined with market and product diversification, can increase the competitiveness of Armenian fish products and lead to greater access to export markets.

Armenia’s aquaculture sector is an important employer, a key food provider, and an engine for export-driven economic growth. It is also one of the country’s fastest-growing sectors. Yet its untapped potential remains significant: At the request of Armenia’s Ministry of Economy, the IFC Armenia Investment Climate Reform Project has produced a sector review to pinpoint market imperfections and offer recommendations.

“The Armenia Aquaculture Sector Review developed at the Ministry’s request by IFC will be a useful tool for policymakers and businesses operating in this sector,” said Sergey Avetisyan, Deputy Minister of Economy of Armenia. “It will help develop the country’s fish industry and stimulate export performance.”

The report found that improving export and import procedures can help increase the competitiveness of aquaculture products. It also stressed the importance of addressing the challenges and opportunities of exporting to foreign markets, including the benefits of improved food safety practices, a stronger supply chain, and reduced administrative barriers.

“This review aims to help tap the country’s significant potential and thereby contribute to Armenia’s economic development,” said Arsen Nazaryan, the IFC Armenia Investment Climate Reform Project Manager. “We look forward to continued cooperation with our partners to do more to enhance the competitiveness and promote exports of the country’s agriculture products.”

The IFC Armenia Investment Climate Reform Project is implemented by the World Bank Group Trade and Competitiveness Global Practice, in partnership with Austria’s Federal Ministry of Finance and Hungarian Partnership Funding/Hungary EXIM Bank.

Turkish Foreign Minister Feridun Sinirlioğlu will pay an official visit to Azerbaijan on Sept. 15-16, the Foreign Ministry has announced.

During his visit, Sinirlioğlu will discuss Turkish-Azerbaijani relations and regional and international developments, including the Nagorno-Karabakh issue, with his counterpart Elman Memmedyarov, the ministry said in a statement.

Sinirlioğlu is also expected to meet with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Prime Minister Artur Rasizade.

Armenia has climbed 5 places and is currently ranked 83^rd in the September edition of the FIFA World Ranking.

Armenia’s rivals in Euro-2016 qualification round are placed as follows: Portugal – 6th, Denmark – 22nd, Serbia – 66rd and Albania – 25th.

There is no change at the top of the ranking, with Argentina continuing to lead the way ahead of Belgium (2nd, unchanged) and Germany (3rd, unchanged).

Armenian Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan will leave for Georgia on July 25 to participate in the opening of the European Youth Olympic Festival in Tbilisi.

Within the framework of the visit the Armenian and Georgian Prime ministers will visit the Darial (Kazbek) border checkpoint to learn about the situation on the spot.

The Knesset must do the moral thing and recognize the Armenian genocide, Knesset Speaker Yuli Edelstein said at a Knesset Education, Culture and Sport Committee meeting Wednesday, the reports.

“I visited one of the Armenian memorial sites and it is very hard to ignore what I saw there,” Edelstein recounted. “I expect that I and the Knesset behave appropriately so that we can make decisions according to the moral standards of a democratic state.”

The Knesset Speaker explained that many governments do not recognize the atrocity, while their parliaments clearly do.

“I will try to promote the issue and I hope that MKs will know the right way to vote in the moment of truth,” he stated.

Twenty-two countries recognize the 1915 massacres as a genocide, including Canada, France and Germany, but not the US.

The Knesset sent a delegation to the Armenian government’s 100th anniversary ceremony in April, but Israel does not formally recognize the Armenian Genocide, in hopes that it can repair ties with Turkey, which perpetrated it.

Education, Culture and Sport Committee chairman Ya’acov Margi (Shas) said “we are aware of the diplomatic sensitivities, but we overcame them and the time has come for the government to do so, too.”

Margi called for the government to recognize the genocide and for the Knesset plenum to make a historic decision in keeping with Jewish values.

“Ignoring [the Armenian genocide] will bring the next genocide,” MK Zehava Gal-On (Meretz), who initiated the meeting along with MK Nachman Shai (Zionist Union), said.

Shai, who attended the memorial ceremony in Armenia, said: “We want to be in the international arena with countries that respect morals. Israel, the state of the Jewish People, must recognize what happened to the Armenians. Nothing will change in our relations with Turkey or Azerbaijan.”

Foreign Ministry representative Oded Yosef said that Israel has ties with Armenia and cooperates with the country in many projects, but the international debate as to whether there was a genocide or not is a political one about semantics.

Gal-On responded: “It would bring honor to Israel to recognize the Armenian genocide. It was a tragedy, but the word tragedy is not enough.”

The protesters against electricity price hike again spent the night on Baghramyan Avenue.

Chief of Police Vladimir Gasparyan visited the site this morning and talked to the protesters.

 

French-Armenian director Robert Guediguian takes on the Armenian genocide and the campaign of vengeance against Turkey in a film that goes in unexpected directions.

The ripple effects of the Armenian genocide on subsequent generations are felt in Robert Guediguian’s drama set during the wave of militant attacks in Europe in the 1980s, according to

Cannes regular Robert Guediguian, the social-realist chronicler of working-class Marseille, reconnects with his paternal roots in Don’t Tell Me the Boy Was Mad, an impassioned but long-winded consideration of the Armenian genocide’s lasting impact on the displaced generations that followed. The film benefits from detailed historical background and an engrossing establishing section that seeds a sense of bitter injustice passed on from survivors to their descendants. But contrived plotting, unidimensional characters and lack of economy weigh down the drama.

The clunky English-language title comes from the lyrics of a 1980 hit by French pop songstress France Gall. But the source material is an autobiographical novel by Spanish journalist Jose Antonio Gurriaran, who was semi-paralyzed in a bomb blast planned by militants from the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia (ASALA) in Madrid in 1981. During his recovery, he researched the Ottoman Empire’s extermination and removal of Armenians from their homeland during World War I, a crime against humanity still officially denied by Turkey. As a result, Gurriaran became an activist for international recognition of the Armenian genocide.

In recognition of the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia on May 17, U.S. Ambassador Richard M. Mills, Jr. met with Armenian civil society representatives who advocate for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) rights in Armenia.  During their meeting, the Ambassador heard from the civil society representatives about their work to ensure that the legal and human rights of LGBT Armenian citizens are fully protected.

The United States remains unwavering in its commitment to advance LGBT equality at home and around the world.  Both former Secretary Clinton and Secretary Kerry have made strong statements condemning discrimination and violence against LGBT persons, recognizing that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights, and that everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The U.S. Embassy has supported NGOs who advocate for equal rights for all Armenians through its Democracy Commission Small Grants program.

 

Ararat Cemetery Improvement Association
Contact: Frank H. Balekian, Jr.
Interim Superintendent & Operations Manager
1925 West Belmont
Fresno, California 93728-2625
Tel: 559.292.2415
Mob: 559.930.2142
Fax: 559.486.2415
Email: [email protected]

CENTRAL CALIFORNIA ARMENIAN CHURCH CLERGYTO CONDUCT MEMORIAL DAY
ARMENIAN HOKEHANKIST SERVICES AT ARARAT AND MASIS ARARAT CEMETERIES

The Armenian Church Clergy from the Armenian Churches of the Greater
San Joaquin Valley will conduct Armenian Hokehankist Memorial Services
Monday, May 31, 2010, at the Ararat and Masis Ararat Cemeteries of
Fresno, California.

The first Hokehankist Memorial Service will take place at 10:00
a.m. at the Armenian Martyrs Memorial near the Yazijian Memorial
Building in the Ararat Cemetery, 1925 West Belmont Avenue, Fresno,
California. A second Hokehankist Memorial Service will follow at
approximately 10:30 a.m. at the Soghomon Tehlirian Monument in the
nearby Masis Ararat Cemetery, 250 North Hughes Avenue. The Armenian
Community of the Greater San Joaquin Valley and the general public are
invited to attend and participate.

The Hokehankist Memorial Services will remember the men and women
fallen while serving in the Armed Forces of the United States of
America, the several generations of departed members of the
American-Armenian Community of Central California, and those 1.5
million Martyred Armenians of the Armenian Genocide of 1915.

Additional information is available by calling the Administrative
Office of the Ararat and Masis Ararat Cemeteries at [559] 292.2415.