The Regional Council of Marche, Italy, unanimously recognized the Armenian Genocide at a sitting held on October 6.
The resolution expresses support to the Armenian people on the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide.
The resolution titled “The Genocide of the Armenian People”was authored by Councilmen Rapa Boris, Pieroni Moreno, Busilacchi Gianluca and Marconi Luca.
TBS’s late-night show host Conan O’Brien is taking his show to Armenia, according to the
The Conan star will be the first American late-night host to ever do a show from the country. O’Brien’s longtime Armenian assistant, Sona Movsesian, will join him when they shoot the installment of his TBS show, which will air at 11 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 10.
The trip will mark the first time in Aremia for both O’Brien and Movsesian. “I think it’s every boss’s responsibility to take their assistant back to their ancestral land,” said O’Brien. “That’s why I’m going to make sure my next assistant was born in a five-star resort in Tuscany.”
In addition to doing shows in New York, Chicago, Dallas and Atlanta, the host most recently filmed Conan from Comic Con in San Diego. In the spring, he made headlines as the first American late-night host to shoot in Cuba in more than 50 years.
O’Brien is planning to continue to do shows from various locations around the globe, with specific details being released over the next few months.
Conan airs Monday through Thursday at 11 p.m.
President Serzh Sargsyan will leave for New York on September 27 to participate in the 70th session of the UN General Assembly and will make a speech.
President Sargsyan will meet with the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs and participate in a summit dedicated to UN peacekeeping operations.
Within the framework of the visit the President will hold a number of bilateral meetings. He is also expected to meet with large investors and representatives of business circles.
In Washington President Sargsyan will participate in a dinner organized by the International Raoul Wallenberg Foundationand at the UN Congress and will offer a speech. The President will meet with representatives of the Armenian community, as well.
President Serzh Sargsyan attended today the opening ceremony of Dilijan Central School which is another major contribution to the community development in Dilijan.
The school opening was conducted by Father Mesrop Aramyan, Cofounder of the Ayb Educational Foundation and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Ayb Learning Hub Foundation, and by the Chairman of the Central Bank of Armenia (CBA), Arthur Javadyan.
The president toured the newly-opened educational institution, familiarized himself with the conditions, educational programs and the teaching methodology aimed at the comprehensive development of children.
Dilijan Central School was established in 2013 by the Ayb Educational Foundation in cooperation with the CBA. It is a general education school designed for up to 160 pupils of 1-9th classes.
The entry of Dilijan Central School into the RA education system has created an urban model of school available not only to CBA employers, but also to other children of families living in Dilijan.
According to the executives, with its ideology and vision, school curriculum, teaching methodology and approaches, and with its teacher and pupil admission policy, the school is totally synchronized with Yerevan’s Ayb elementary and middle schools. The Ayb educational foundation is also in charge of the school management and the introduction of educational content corresponding to Ayb’s standards.
The construction of the school and its operation is entirely financed by the CBA.
The territory of Dilijan Central School also houses a fab lab, an industrial research lab, which has been established in cooperation with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The lab will serve school pupils, as well as pupils, students and creative people from Dilijan and nearby cities.
During the tour, President Serzh Sargsyan was informed that presently more than 80% of 119 pupils studying at school and 24% of the school employees are from Dilijan, 22% of the employees has moved from Yerevan to Dilijan with their families, 13% of the employees are from Armenia’s other marzes, and the remained employees combine their jobs in Yerevan and Dilijan.
The performance of young jazz musicians and a press conference at Charles Aznavour Square marked the start of the Yerevan Jazz Fest 2015. The festival held at the initiative of the Armenian Jazz Association and the Mezzo Production Company will consist of three concerts scheduled for September 17, 18 and 19. The event will feature both Armenian and foreign jazzmen, including famous American jazz musician Richard Bona
Jazz festival was held in Yerevan in 2006. One of Armenian jazz legends Armen Tutunjyan (Chiko) hopes the event will become continuous.
“This is an event Yerevan needs as a city that has lived and breathed with jazz rhythms for years,” singer Erna Yuzbashyan says.
“Armenia has had great jazzmen and has a huge potential today,” she told a press conference today.
The past summer was significant from the point of view of regional developments, says Ara Papian, Head of the Modus Vivendi Center. He considers the current conditions in the region are most favorable for Armenia, but doubts we’ll be able to draw benefits.
“What’s happening in the region today is advantageous to Armenia,” Papian told a press conference today. Among the benefits Papian noted the situation in Turkey (with the Kurdish movement and the perspective of creation of a new state), the elimination of sanctions against Iran and its access to the international market.
“Leaving aside the joint programs Armenia and Iran can implement in the future, the decreased oil prices are already favorable. Azerbaijan will be finally smashed, if the price per barrel goes below $20. “Less money, less weapons,” Ara Papian said. He also predicted serious economic and political problems for the neighboring country.
Along with the decreased oil revenues, Azerbaijan is aware that it has time until yearend to solve issues by force, the expert said, adding, however, that resumption of war is unlikely.
“Azerbaijan is almost confident it won’t succeed, while the losses may exceed the expectations,” he said.
“We have a favorable geopolitical situation, one that Armenia has not seen for decades, but my concern is that we’re not going to draw benefits from it due to domestic political issues and because we are not ready,” Papian concluded.
Papian soothed all those worried about the activity of the Islamic State. “ISIS will hardly reach the borders of Armenia. There are a number of interested states and nations along that route struggling against the group.”
Former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi has reportedly said Vladimir Putin wants to grant him Russian citizenship and appoint him the country’s economic minister, Agence France-Presse reports.
“In Italy, I have been relegated to the sidelines, but Putin has told me he is willing to give me citizenship, and entrust me with running the economy ministry,” La Stampa newspaper quoted Mr Berlusconi as saying at a dinner party.
“My future? Becoming minister for my friend Putin,” the 78-year-old reportedly said.
Mr Putin and Mr Berlusconi are longstanding friends.
Four people died when a building collapsed in central Tbilisi on Monday. Witnesses say there were workers there during the collapse, the Democrary and Freedom Watch reports.
Rescuers are looking for one more worker in the collapsed building located in the Saburtalo district, behind the Sports Palace. It was built during the Soviet Union and was used by the Institute of Mathematics, but was recently sold and refurbishing is under way with plans to open a hotel there.
The reasons of the collapse are not yet known. However, experts have said many of the buildings being constructed in this area don’t meet safety standards and might be dangerous.
President Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation has sent a congratulatory message to Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan on his birthday.
“During your time in office, you have gained the respect you deserve among your compatriots, as well as a high reputation in the international arena. I greatly appreciate your personal contribution to the strengthening of the friendly and allied relationship between our countries,” Putin said.
The message further reads:
“I warmly recall your recent visit to Moscow during which you joined us in partaking in the 70th Anniversary of the Victory in the Great Patriotic War. I would be glad to continue our meetings, constructive dialogue and concerted efforts for the well-being of the brotherly peoples of Armenia and Russia.
I sincerely wish you good health, happiness, well-being, success and all the best,” reads the RF president’s congratulatory message.
President Vladimir Putin today also had a phone conversation with President Serzh Sargsyan, congratulated him and sent him birthday wishes.
During the phone conversation, the two heads of state also reflected upon issues pertaining to the deepening of relations between the allied states and the promotion of multifaceted cooperation.”
The day will officially be a bit longer than usual on Tuesday, June 30, 2015, because an extra second, or “leap” second, will be added, NASA said.
“Earth’s rotation is gradually slowing down a bit, so leap seconds are a way to account for that,” said Daniel MacMillan of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Strictly speaking, a day lasts 86,400 seconds. That is the case, according to the time standard that people use in their daily lives – Coordinated Universal Time, or UTC. UTC is “atomic time” – the duration of one second is based on extremely predictable electromagnetic transitions in atoms of cesium. These transitions are so reliable that the cesium clock is accurate to one second in 1,400,000 years.
However, the mean solar day – the average length of a day, based on how long it takes Earth to rotate – is about 86,400.002 seconds long. That’s because Earth’s rotation is gradually slowing down a bit, due to a kind of braking force caused by the gravitational tug of war between Earth, the moon and the sun. Scientists estimate that the mean solar day hasn’t been 86,400 seconds long since the year 1820 or so.
This difference of 2 milliseconds, or two thousandths of a second – far less than the blink of an eye – hardly seems noticeable at first. But if this small discrepancy were repeated every day for an entire year, it would add up to almost a second. In reality, that’s not quite what happens. Although Earth’s rotation is slowing down on average, the length of each individual day varies in an unpredictable way.
The length of day is influenced by many factors, mainly the atmosphere over periods less than a year. Our seasonal and daily weather variations can affect the length of day by a few milliseconds over a year. Other contributors to this variation include dynamics of the Earth’s inner core (over long time periods), variations in the atmosphere and oceans, groundwater, and ice storage (over time periods of months to decades), and oceanic and atmospheric tides. Atmospheric variations due to El Niño can cause Earth’s rotation to slow down, increasing the length of day by as much as 1 millisecond, or a thousandth of a second.
Scientists monitor how long it takes Earth to complete a full rotation using an extremely precise technique called Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI). These measurements are conducted by a worldwide network of stations, with Goddard providing essential coordination of VLBI, as well as analyzing and archiving the data collected.
The time standard called Universal Time 1, or UT1, is based on VLBI measurements of Earth’s rotation. UT1 isn’t as uniform as the cesium clock, so UT1 and UTC tend to drift apart. Leap seconds are added, when needed, to keep the two time standards within 0.9 seconds of each other. The decision to add leap seconds is made by a unit within the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service.
Typically, a leap second is inserted either on June 30 or December 31. Normally, the clock would move from 23:59:59 to 00:00:00 the next day. But with the leap second on June 30, UTC will move from 23:59:59 to 23:59:60, and then to 00:00:00 on July 1. In practice, many systems are instead turned off for one second.
Previous leap seconds have created challenges for some computer systems and generated some calls to abandon them altogether. One reason is that the need to add a leap second cannot be anticipated far in advance.
“In the short term, leap seconds are not as predictable as everyone would like,” said Chopo Ma, a geophysicist at Goddard and a member of the directing board of the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service. “The modeling of the Earth predicts that more and more leap seconds will be called for in the long-term, but we can’t say that one will be needed every year.”
From 1972, when leap seconds were first implemented, through 1999, leap seconds were added at a rate averaging close to one per year. Since then, leap seconds have become less frequent. This June’s leap second will be only the fourth to be added since 2000.