Author: Markos Nalchajian

On March 9, in the Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, His Holiness Karekin II, Supreme Patriarch and Catholicos of All Armenians; received Mr. Nikos Kotsias, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greece. He was accompanied by his delegation, and Mr. Karen Nazaryan, Deputy Foreign Minister of the Republic of Armenia, and the Ambassadors of the two countries.

During their conversation, His Holiness reflected on the centuries-old friendly relations between the two nations, which serves today as a solid basis for effective cooperation between the two countries.

His Holiness presented to the Minister the historical role of the Armenian Apostolic Holy Church in the life of the Armenian people, particularly noting the difficulties faced by the Church during Soviet times, and as well as the current mission and challenges.

The Catholicos of All Armenians referred to the brotherly relations between the Armenian Apostolic and Greek Orthodox Churches and the close cooperation between Greece and the Mother See, through which members of the Brotherhood of the Mother See continue their higher spiritual education in Greek Universities.

Minister Kostsias spoke about the important mission of Churches in the life of the people. He stressed that the Church is implementing an important service, contributing to the preservation of national identity and moral values in society, and the spreading of a spirit of tolerance, solidarity and optimism.

During the meeting, the Catholicos of All Armenians and Minister Kotsias also spoke on the tragic situation in the Middle East.

Attending the meeting was His Eminence Archbishop Nathan Hovhannisyan, Director of the External Relations and Protocol Department of the Mother See.

It has been decided that the CSTO Secretary Generals will change according to a rotation principle. Naturally, if rotation comes into force, Armenia should naturally be the first to hold chairmanship of the organization (according to the Russian alphabet), Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Shavarsh Kocharyan told reporters today.

“The rotation had to come into force from January 1^st, 2017, with Armenia’s representative appointed as Secretary General. There was lack of consensus during the previous summit, because Belarus was absent,” Shavarsh Kocharayn said.

“As a result, we have an acting Secretary General, because there had already been a decision, according to which Nikolay Bordyuzha could not retainoffice,” he said.

“The issue should be solved at the next summit of the CSTO. The position belongs to Armenia, and the Secretary General will be appointed as soon as a consensus decision is made,” the Deputy Foreign Minister said.

“We are always concerned with the issue of press freedom. That is something that we speak to almost every day,” Spokesperson for the US Department of State John Kirby told a daily briefing, when asked to comment on Azerbaijan’s demands to extradite Israeli-Russian blogger Alexander Lapshin.

“First, I’d say this is really something for the relevant countries to speak to, especially when you’re talking about extradition requests. That’s really for them to speak to. Obviously, press freedom is important to us, and we talk about it all the time. I don’t have any specific information with respect to this case, but I’d refer you to the relevant countries to speak to that,” the Spokesperson said.

“We are always concerned with the issue of press freedom. That is something that we speak to almost every day, sadly. We have to speak to it every day. So certainly, our concern over the freedom of journalists to do their jobs remains very robust, but I don’t have any specific information on this case,” Kirby said.

The Government of Belarus has arrested Israeli-Russian blogger Alexander Lapshin based on request from Azerbaijan. The Government of Azerbaijan accuses him of visiting Nagorno-Karabakh and also  some public statements that were not favorable for the Azerbaijani Government – particularly, as they phrased it, because there were public calls against the state by Lapshin. Now the Government of Azerbaijan also demands the extradition of Lapshin.

Israeli Government resisted this. Russia’s Foreign Minister in his public statement. And the Committee to Protect Journalists from New York also called for unconditional release of the blogger.

Michigan State University is one of a growing number of institutions using video testimonies from genocide survivors to inspire learning and new research insights across multiple academic disciplines. The University is providing its students, faculty and researchers with access to University of Southern California (USC) Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive®, the world’s largest collection of eyewitness accounts from genocide witnesses and survivors, available through .

“Moving forward into an era in which we will no longer be able to speak with Holocaust survivors personally, oral testimonies provide essential historical and emotional truths about the Holocaust,” said Amy Simon, William and Audrey Farber Family Endowed Chair in Holocaust Studies and European Jewish History at Michigan State University.

“Faculty from a range of disciplines are interested in furthering their research through this archive,” added Simon. “All of us hope to complement our printed sources with these oral testimonies as we write about history, language, economics, trauma studies, literature, and more. Many of us have also begun using these testimonies in the classroom, encouraging our students to delve into them in their own research.”

The Visual History Archive includes 54,000 video interviews, each one a source of unique and powerful stories from the Holocaust and other genocides, including those that occurred in Rwanda, Guatemala, Armenia and Nanjing. Soon to be added will be testimonies from Cambodia. The average length of each testimony is about two hours, preserving a complete personal history of life before, during and after the subject’s firsthand experience with genocide. Digitized, fully searchable via indexed keywords, and hyperlinked to the minute, the archive contains more than 114,000 hours of testimony that can be precisely narrowed to pinpoint topics of interest, making it particularly useful to students, faculty and researchers.

USC Shoah Foundation and ProQuest launched a partnership in 2016 to dramatically improve access, discovery and contextual understanding to the content of the Visual History Archive. The ability to connect the streamed video and metadata to a library’s holdings of ProQuest content – which can span dissertations, historical news, periodicals, scholarly journals, government records, primary source documents, and ebooks – provides researchers with a much richer experience and greater insights about the impact of these exceptional testimonies.

Armenia’s Central Bank said on Tuesday it had cut its refinancing rate to 6.25 percent from 6.5 percent.

Annual deflation in the country was at 0.6 percent in November, compared to 0.9 percent deflation in October, according to Central Bank data.

On a monthly basis, the inflation rate stood at 1 percent in November, up from 0.5 percent in October.

On November 30 the United Nations Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation of New York hosted a dinner in honor of Ban Ki-moon, whose nine-year term as UN Secretary-General will conclude on December 31, 2016. The co-founders of the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative Vartan Gregorian, Noubar Afeyan and Ruben Vardanyan expressed their gratitude to Ban Ki-moon in an open letter:

“Dear Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon:

On behalf of the Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity, we would like to publicly express our gratitude for your unyielding commitment to raising awareness and rallyingsupport forthe world’s most vulnerable people during your term as Secretary-General of the United Nations.

We greatly admire and appreciate your tireless efforts to mobilize and spur action to address humanity’s most pressing challenges. You have brought to life the spirit of the Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity, which seeks to recognize those risking themselves for the benefit of others, in your work to advocate on behalf of the defenseless. Throughout your term of office you have remained steadfast to your goal of making the United Nations the pinnacle of progress, delivering meaningful results that advance women, children and the vulnerable around the world.

In particular, we want to acknowledge your commitment to embracing the learnings of the past to better inform judgment and action in the future. The Aurora Prize is given annually on behalf of the survivors of the Armenian Genocide and in gratitude to their saviors. In this spirit, we are grateful for your approval of the resolution establishing December 9 as . We are pleased the resolution acknowledges that the prevention of genocide remains a specific obligation under modern international law. Thanks to your work, December 9 now represents an important annual moment for the global community to come together toraise awareness of the Genocide Convention, its role in combating and preventingthe crime of genocide, and thecommemoration of thevictims of mass violence – today and in history.

As your term draws to a close, we join with the many people around the world in thanking you for your commitment to public service, and we hope to play a role in continuing your legacy.

Yours sincerely,

Noubar Afeyan                                              

Vartan Gregorian                                          

Ruben Vardanyan

Co-Founders, Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity”

President Serzh Sargsyan received today Heads of delegations of the Customs agencies of the Eurasian Economic Union member states who have arrived in Armenia to participate at the 21st session of the Joint Board of the Customs agencies of the EEU member states, President’s Press Office reports.

The President of Armenia welcomed the guests and stressed the importance of the Board’s meeting held today in Tsakhkadzor. Stressing that customs services represent an important structure which interact on a daily basis with the business community of the EEU member states, Serzh Sargsyan noted that impressions regarding the EEU are also being shaped based on their work and cooperation; the improvement of business environment considerably depends on the activities of the customs agency of any country, as well as the formation and development of the goods, services, capitals and labor markets at the common economic area.

The President of Armenia expressed hope that current issues and decisions adopted during the meeting in Tsakhkadzor will promote the resolution of the mentioned issues and implementation of the objectives set by the members of the Union in the framework on the integration processes.

Heads of delegations of the Customs agencies of the Eurasian Economic Union member states presented to Serzh Sargsyan the results of the 21st session of the Joint Board and expressed thanks to the Armenian colleagues for organizing the meeting at a high level. They underscored that any union is based first and foremost on mutual trust, and the works of the Joint Board of the Customs agencies is aimed at strengthening that trust through the daily close cooperation. The participants of the meeting reported to the President on the works aimed at the improvement of the new Customs law, problems and challenges existing in the Customs area, and prospects of development.

On 24 November Artsakh Republic President Bako Sahakyan launched consultations around the new Constitution draft presented to him by the Expert Committee on the Constitutional reforms under the NKR President.

On the same day the President met with a group of the Artsakh movement activists considering symbolic the start of this process within such a framework, NKR President’s Press Office reports.

President Serzh Sargsyan received today the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs Igor Popov, James Warlick and Pierre Andrieu, and the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office Andrzej Kaspryk.

The Armenian President and the Co-Chairs discussed the process of peaceful settlement of the Karabakh  conflict and the existing problems.

The Co-Chairs briefed the Armenian President on the results of the meetings in Stepanakert and Baku.

The interlocutors stressed the importance of the parties’ committment to the peaceful settlement of the conflict and the implementation of the agreements reached on the highest level in Vienna and St. Petersburg.

Luis Suarez admitted there were questions to answer when he got home from Barcelona’s 4-0 win over Manchester City on Wednesday night when his children asked why he had not scored, the Daily Mail reports. 

Suarez was joined on stage by his son and daughter as he was presented with the Golden Shoe for scoring 40 league goals last season – more than any other striker in Europe.

“I told them don’t worry, we won and [Lionel] Messi scored a hat-trick and they were happy,” he said.

Messi and Andres Iniesta also joined Suarez at the event in Barcelona as the Uruguayan won the award for the second time in three years.

The scout who discovered him in Uruguay, Wilson Perez, appeared on the big screen talking about Suarez’s early days at Uruguayan club Nacional, where some fans labelled him a donkey because he struggled to score when he first broke through into the first team.

There were also words of congratulations from Uruguay coach Oscar Tabarez.