Author: Toneyan Mark

Russia stands against extradition of blogger to Azerbaijan over visit to Nagorno Karabakh

Toneyan Mark

Russia will try to solve the issue connected with the detention of Russian-Israeli blogger Alexander Lapshin over his visit to Nagorno Karabakh, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told a press conference today, reports.

The authorities in Belarus detained Lapshin in Minsk on December 15, 2016 at the request of Azerbaijan.

Lavrov said “Russia stands against criminalization of the visits by journalists or other persons to this or that territory in different regions. He added that “Moscow disagrees with the extradition of Russians detained abroad to a third country.”

“We’ll take all measures to settle the situation with full respect for the rights of the citizen of the Russian Federation, who is also a citizen of Israel,” Lavrov said.

Hripsime Arakelyan appointed Acting Head of Government’s Information and Public Relations Department

Toneyan Mark

Hripsime Arakelyan has been appointed Acting Head of the Information and Public Relations Department of RA Government

Born in Yerevan, she graduated the Armenian State Pedagogical University after Khachatur Abovyan and the Public Administration Academy of the Republic of Armenia.

Hripsime Arakelyan has headed the news departments at Ar TV and Hay TV Company. She also worked at the Public TV Company of Armenia and headed the “Radiolur” program of Public Radio of Armenia.

Another flight recorder of Tu-154 recovered from seabed near Sochi

Toneyan Mark

Another flight recorder of the ill-fortunate Tupolev-154 that crashed near Sochi last Sunday morning has been recovered from the seabed, TASS reports.

“The second flight recorder of the Tupolev-154 plane was spotted and recovered less than 30 minutes ago,” the Defense Ministry’s report runs.

Earlier, the plane’s cockpit voice recorder (CVR) was delivered to the Russian Aerospace Force’s research center in Lubertsy, near Moscow. Primary analysis of the data already retrieved from the first recorder has allowed for narrowing the range of likely causes of the plane’s crash.

Divers have retrieved a total of 15 bodies and 239 body parts from the bottom of the Black Sea, the ministry said.

Executive Director of Public Radio of Armenia awarded National Assembly’s Medal of Honor

Toneyan Mark

On December 27, on the occasion of the New Year  the

President of the RA National Assembly Galust Sahakyan hosted a New Year reception for mass media representatives . Addressing the attendees the NA Speaker said:

“Dear representatives of  mass media,

I congratulate you on the occasion of New Year and Christmas.

The passing year was rich in events, so I think that we had no occasion for getting bored. The media representatives were in the centre of attention of all the events in Artsakh, in Armenia with high conscience of civil and professional duty. The battlefield and the political field, the inter-state and inner-state life never felt any slight sign of indifference or carelessness, including also in the National Assembly.

Considering the parliament as a democratic free political platform of expression of moods and viewpoints, me as Speaker of the National Assembly and the Staff of the National Assembly, always sought to provide the execution of the right to free speech and sincere atmosphere of the implementation of journalistic activities and relevant conditions. I hope that our cooperation both in terms of political and merely human sense is successful and will have effective continuation.

Dear journalists, the upcoming year of 2017 is a year of parliamentary elections. I am sure that as always, during this important event for our country the journalistic field of Armenia will display itself with dignity, being guided by all-state and popular interests.

Once again congratulating you on the occasion of New Year and Holy Nativity, I wish you and your families peace, welfare and all the best.”

By the order of the RA NA Speaker Galust Sahakyan, for great contribution to the freedom of information and speech the Executive Director of the Public Radio of Armenia Arman Saghatelyan was awarded the RA NA Medal of Honour,   the Deputy Director of Public Radion of Armenia Lilit Tumanyan,   the journalist of the Hyemedia AM Information Website Karen Vardanyan, the Editor of Yerkir AM Information Website Agnesa Khamoyan, the Editor of ArmInfo Agency Tatevik Shahunyan, the journalits of AR TV Company Margarit Davtyan were awarded the RA National Assembly Diploma.   The Editor of Shamshyan com Information Website Gagik Shamshyan, the journalist of Hetq am Information Website Grisha Balasanyan, the journalist of Shant TV Company Artak Hovhannisyan, the journalist of Armenia TV Company Zohrab Haroyan were awarded the RA National Assembly President’s Memorial Medal, the journalist of the information website Orer.am Sose Chandoyan, the Adviser to the Director of the Public Relations and Information Centre SNCO of the RA President’s Staff Mariam Hakhnazaryan, the journalist of Kamar electronic newspaper Marieta Makaryan, the journalist of Aravot daily Nelly Grigoryan, the journalist of Ararat TV Company Zhirayr Grigoryan, the journalist of Ararat TV Company Izabella Hovhannisyan, , the cameraman of Panorama am Information Website Vardan Poghosyan, the cameraman of Yerkir Media TV Company Ashot Gabrielyan were awarded the RA NA President’s Letters of Appreciation, and the Adviser to the Director of Public Relations and Information Centre Hovhannes Nikoghosyan were awarded the RA NA President’s souvenirs – nominal watches.

Egypt court quashes Morsi life sentence

Toneyan Mark 
Photo: AP

 

Egypt’s highest appeal court has overturned a life sentence handed down to ousted President Mohammed Morsi, the BBC reports.

The Court of Cassation ordered that the 65-year-old be retried on the charge of conspiring to commit terrorist acts with foreign organisations.

Last week, the court quashed a death sentence handed to Morsi in a separate case revolving around a mass prison break during the 2011 revolution.

But he is still serving lengthy sentences related to two other cases.

Morsi was elected president in 2012 but was removed by the military a year later after protests against his rule.

Craig Burley: Mkhitaryan could excel as Man Utd No.10

Toneyan Mark

Manchester United attacker Henrikh Mkhitaryan would be a good option in the No.10 role, claims former Chelsea and Celtic midfielder Craig Burley.

The Armenian has been overlooked by Jose Mourinho this season, however, can still be of use to the Red Devils according to the pundit.

The former Borussia Dortmund man has started just once for the side in all competitions since joining – against Manchester City in the Premier League – and has made a total of four appearances for United this season.

Despite this, Burley says the 27-year-old has much to offer the Old Trafford outfit.

“I would argue that Mkhitaryan, given a chance and longevity, could probably do a good job in that role, but that, for some strange reason, doesn’t see as if it is going to even get off the starters blocks,” said the Scotsman, as reported by ESPN.

The Red Devils host Arsenal this weekend at Old Trafford, with United looking to improve their current position of sixth on the Premier League table.

USAID completes successful effort to improve social protection system in Armenia

Toneyan Mark

More than 700,000 Armenians have access to an improved social safety net thanks to the USAID-funded Pension Reform Implementation Program (PRIP), which marked the completion of its activities on November 9. The four-year program worked with the Government of Armenia and local partners to make the country’s social protection system more efficient, transparent, and financially stable.

The improvements brought by the program support Armenia’s broader strategy to reduce poverty, strengthen social services institutions, and empower its citizens to exercise their social protection rights and responsibilities.

During the event marking the completion of the project, Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Artem Asatryan, USAID Armenia Mission Director Deborah Grieser, and John Thissen, Project Management Unit Director at Chemonics International (the partner that implemented the program), spoke of the project’s success.

In her welcome remarks, Director Grieser noted that the partnership between USAID and the Government of Armenia on this effort was geared towards tangible results and improvements in the sector. Thanks to this partnership, the government was able to increase pension benefits by 15% in 2014 and an additional 15% in 2015, with no additional cost to the budget.

“The introduction of modern technologies and the digitalization of the Ministry of Labor’s paper-based personal records have significantly improved record management and the transparency of Armenia’s social protection system, resulting in savings of many millions of drams for the state budget,” she said. “In addition, this modern system helps limit the opportunities for fraud and corruption.”

Over the past three and half years, USAID has used the reform effort to help the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs integrate several databases into a single electronic platform, ePension, which makes social sector data more accurate and decreases the chances for corruption.  Through ePension, the possibilities for duplicate registrations and multiple payments to the same beneficiary from different social service offices have been removed.  Furthermore, the ePension system is now accessible in all of the integrated social services centers throughout Armenia.  As a result, citizens with ID cards can now conveniently receive services and social payments in more locations, without having to visit several government offices and present numerous documents.

Also through the project, the Ministry developed a centralized payment system for child care benefits, so families no longer face demands for bribes in order to receive child benefits.  The Government of Armenia has also digitized and archived paper-based personal records to secure electronic files against any unauthorized data alterations or transfers.

In an innovative approach to social reform, the program also helped the Ministry work with civil society organizations to ensure that beneficiaries of the social services system receive payments and services in an efficient manner.  In fact, following the project’s implementation, a survey of about 500,000 pension beneficiaries found that 99% received timely payments and improved social services.

Another of the program’s accomplishments is the creation of the 114 hotline, which the Ministry developed with support from USAID and the World Bank.  The hotline initially addressed only pension-related questions but has since grown to accommodate a large volume of calls regarding all types of social issues, including disability allowances and family benefits.  A nationwide survey has revealed that Armenian families are highly satisfied with the 114 hotline.

Building on these successes, USAID will continue to work with the Government of Armenia on social sector reforms, including reforms that will help ensure social inclusion, improved welfare and better protection for children and other vulnerable groups.

“We applaud Armenia’s consistent progress in implementing social protection reforms and encourage the Government of Armenia to continue improving the transparency and accountability of the system to see even more results in the social protection area,” Director Grieser said.

Children of Ahgdzk village will have a brand-new kindergarten

Toneyan Mark

The Hayastan All-Armenian Fund has begun construction on a new kindergarten in Aghdzk, a village in Armenia’s Aragatsotn Region. The project is sponsored by the British-Armenian community.

The future kindergarten will be a two-story structure featuring a full complement of amenities and comforts. In addition to bright, spacious classrooms and naprooms, the facility will have a gym, a game hall, a computer room, and a sizeable playground, all of which will make for an enriching educational and leisure environment. The kindergarten will accommodate up to 90 students.

“As our old kindergarten had to be shut down three years ago because the building was no longer safe, the fact that our British-Armenian compatriots are now sponsoring the construction of a new kindergarten is a source of great joy to our community,” said Aghdzk mayor Arsen Avdalyan.

With an abiding commitment to the education and healthy development of children in the homeland, the British-Armenian community sponsors projects mainly in the education and health fields. In recent years, the Hayastan All-Armenian Fund has implemented several major projects through British-Armenian support, including the construction of a kindergarten in the village of Sasunik, Armenia; and the reconstruction of the boarding kindergarten of Yerevan’s Shengavit district.

Peter Balakian receives Pulitzer Prize for Poetry at centennial ceremony

Toneyan Mark

Peter Balakian received the 2016 Pulitzer Prize for poetry at the 100th  anniversary Ceremony of the Pulitzer Prizes held at Columbia University on Oct. 13. Balakian was one of the seven recipients in the fields of Letters, Drama, and Music, the reports.

Among the other recipients were Viet Thanh Nguyen in fiction for his novel The Sympathizer, Lin-Manuel Miranda in drama for the musical Hamilton, and jazz composer Henry Threadgill for “In For a Penny In for a Pound.” Among the fourteen prizes in journalism were Kathryn Schultz for Feature Writing at the New Yorker, Alyssa J. Rubin for International Reporting at The New York Times, and the Los Angeles Times Staff for Breaking News Reporting.

Professor Daniele Allen, Director of the Edmond J. Safra Center For Ethics at Harvard University, was the keynote speaker. The awards were presented by Lee C. Bollinger, President of Columbia University.

The Pulitzer committee cited Ozone Journal for “poems that bear witness to the old losses and tragedies that undergird a global age of danger and uncertainty.” Writing about Ozone Journal in Consequence Magazine, Keith Jones wrote: “Balakian is a master of—the drifting, split-second mirage, the cinematic dissolve and cross-cut as well as the sculptural, statuesque moment chiseled out of consonant blends and an imagistic, jazzman’s ear for vowels… beautiful, haunting, plaintive, urgent, in our dying world’s age, these poems legislate a vital comportment to the demands of our shared present, timely and untimely both.” And David Wojahn in Tikkun wrote: “Few American poets of the boomer generation have explored the interstices of public and personal history as deeply and urgently as has Balakian.”

Balakian is the first Armenian American to be awarded a Pulitzer Prize since William Saroyan in 1940.

Chris Bohjalian: Putting a face on the refugee crisis

Toneyan Mark

By Chris Bohjalian

For most of America, the heartbreaking faces of Syrian refugees this year have belonged to children. We have seen them drowned and we have seen them stunned into silence by warfare and covered in blood. (We’ve also seen them likened to Skittles, but that appalling analogy belongs only to the Trumps.)

At the moment, however, when I put a real face on the refugee crisis I see a balding 50-year-old man with gentle green eyes and a salt and pepper mustache. I met him on the second to last day in August in Ishkhanadzor, a modest village in Nagorno-Karabakh, the fledgling Armenian republic in the Caucasus that is still struggling for recognition. Ishkhanadzor is about 15 miles north of the Araxes River and the border with Iran. Among the town’s 360 residents is one physician, Haig Khatchadourian, a soft-spoken neuropathologist who now works as a general practitioner in the village’s seven-room clinic. He is also a refugee.

In the summer of 2014, ISIS fighters from Tunisia, Libya, and Iraq came to his summer home in Tal Hmedy, a town in northeastern Syria, and took him by force to their administrative building and court. Khatchadourian does not recall the date, but he remembers it was two in the afternoon and his three daughters — all between 12 and 14 years old then — were present. He told the girls that if he did not return home that night, they should take the bus to their relatives in the city of Al-Qamishli. At the court, ISIS administrators demanded that he renounce his Christianity, telling him that he would be brought to the center of the village and executed if he didn’t.

“I expected to be beheaded,” he told me as we chatted together in the shade from a small copse of trees outside his apartment in Ishkhanadzor. “I refused to convert. I was prepared to die a Christian because life has no meaning if you give up your faith.”

After four hours before the court, however, the ISIS tribunal released him. He has absolutely no idea why and they never gave him a reason. Two days earlier he had witnessed ISIS fighters executing a Muslim in the village center for saying something negative about the prophet Muhammad. The man’s executioner was his own nephew.

At the time, Khatchadourian and his three daughters were dividing their time between their primary residence in Al-Qamishli and Tal Hmedy. Al-Qamishli technically was never under ISIS control and the doctor and his family could have remained there. But the Syrian conflict was all around them and Khatchadourian feared everyday for the safety of his daughters — and lived with the prospect that he might not be alive to raise them.

And so in 2015 he and his girls emigrated north to Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous, Armenian-populated enclave lodged between Iran, Azerbaijan, and Armenia. In the village and the surrounding area, they joined 200 other Syrian and Lebanese Armenian refugees. He says he and his family are very happy here: “We like that we are surrounded by Armenians. And we like that everyone here has recognized us as human beings.”

Here in the United States, of course, “refugee” and “immigrant” are frightening words in some people’s opinion. This is especially true if the refugees are from Syria. So far, the U.S. has welcomed roughly 12,000 Syrian refugees, a number that has made barely a dent into the crisis brought on by the Syrian civil war and the rise of ISIS. To put this in perspective, Canada has taken in over 50,000 refugees, Germany has welcomed 600,000, and even tiny Belgium has accepted 16,000. And then, of course, there are the Middle Eastern countries that have taken in quite literally millions, including Lebanon, which is home to well over 1.25 million Syrian refugees.

I have met refugee children from Syria in schools in Lebanon, Armenia, and Canada, and their resilience and good cheer has left me awed.

The reality is that I am the grandson of survivors of the Armenian Genocide, which means that I am a grandson of immigrants from the Middle East. In the wake of the Hamidian Massacre in the 1890s and then the Ottoman Empire’s slaughter of 1.5 million of my ancestors during the First World War, the U.S. welcomed easily 75,000 Armenian immigrants. It’s why today there are such large Armenian-American communities in Massachusetts, New Jersey and California.

And so when I travel to places such as Ishkhanadzor, I’m ashamed of the way the U.S. has turned “refugee” and “immigrant” into synonyms for “terrorist.” (Even here in Vermont, the mayor of Rutland has been pilloried because he is bringing 100 refugees to his municipality.) It’s not merely that we are a nation of immigrants or that the bedrock of our national identity is our historical willingness to welcome the tired and homeless and poor, those “huddled masses yearning to breathe free” (thank you, Emma Lazarus). It’s that we have the resources that a struggling, largely unrecognized republic such as Nagorno-Karabakh can only dream of. The roads around Ishkhanadzor are dirt and have a diabolical predilection to flatten car tires. (On my journey there at the end of the summer, my small caravan of three SUVs suffered two flats in a morning.) Khatchadourian’s clinic only has hot water sporadically, because the boiler is an antique. Likewise, there are hours (and days) when it is without electricity.

But he insists he has found happiness there that he never had in Syria. “Everyone here is my daughters’ friend — and mine,” he said. “We are part of the community.”

I realize that a refugee such as Khatchadourian is less threatening to some Americans because he’s a Christian, not a Muslim. But like all refugees he is – as he put it when we spoke in the shade of those trees – first and foremost a human being. And that’s a reality that Americans should come to embrace.