Category: 2019

Armenian PM’s office to have 720 employees

Jalatian Sonya
Panorama, Armenia
June 3 2019

The Armenian prime minister’s office will have 720 employees, according to a decision signed by PM Nikol Pashinyan.

The Armenian leader has also signed another decision to approve the Rules of Procedure of the Office of the High Commissioner for Diaspora Affairs (former Ministry of Diaspora).

The respective documents are available on e-gov.am.

The PM’s decisions come after a new government structure was set earlier in April, reducing the number of ministries from 17 to 12.

The government is set to function with the following ministries: the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Ministry of Defense; Ministry of Emergency Situations; Ministry of Justice; Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs; Ministry of Education, Science and Culture; Ministry of Nature Protection; Ministry of Health; Ministry of Finance; Ministry of Economy; Ministry of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure and Ministry of High Technology Industry. 

UWC Dilijan bids farewell to the 4th generation of graduates

Parkev Tvankchian
 MediaMax, Armenia
June 3 2019
 
 
UWC Dilijan bids farewell to the 4th generation of graduates

Words of gratitude and promises to make the world a better place are heard in UWC Dilijan, as 103 students from 56 countries graduate from the college. 

 

It means Armenia will have 103 more ambassadors in various corners of the world. That is what the college calls the alumni who take important ideas and system of values back home, where they continue learning and working.

 

Photo: UWC

 

Bongiswa Dlamini from the Kingdom of Eswatini (Africa) will take from Armenia love and philanthropy, the things she saw while studying at the college and living with her host family.

 

“When I just arrived here, I could not imagine the person I would become 2 years later. I have grown spiritually and mentally. I am more broad-minded now, I started dreaming bigger, and I know I can realize my dreams.

 

I think our time at Dilijan is good not only for us, but for the hosts as well. I volunteered to work at charity organization “Orran” in Vanadzor, which teaches children from needy families and children left without parental care. Seeing their eyes, their love and the anticipation of our weekly visits was the most amazing, wonderful experience for me. They are more broad-minded now too. It makes me very content,” said Bongiswa.

 

Photo: UWC

 

UWC Dilijan is seeing off the fourth generation of graduates this year. Member of the Board of Trustees of the college Pierre Gurdjian reminds them: apart from rights, they also have the responsibility and commitment to make the world a better place.

 

“I invite you to look into your hearts, figure our who you have become over the last 2 years, and find the unique voice inside that will help you influence the world. Nobody knows when and how you will make this world better, but you will. If you make the world better, it will answer in kind,” he said.

 

Pierre Gurdjian

Photo: UWC

 

The hall where the students say their graduation speech also hosts the college founders, teachers, the parents, guests and alumni. The latter don’t miss an opportunity to come back to the college.

 

Diogo from Portugal graduated last year and decided to stay in Armenia for a while. He is working at Aurora Humanitarian Initiative and UWC Dilijan. When he is done with his work there, Diogo will travel to the United States to study art design.

“Studying at the college was a great experience. If you have the opportunity come here, I recommend you use it,” he said.

 

Co-founder, Chairperson of the Board of Trustees Veronika Zonabend has said that what makes UWC Dilijan important and extraordinary is not the beautiful campus, surroundings or structure, but the people who study and work there.

 

Veronika Zonabend

Photo: UWC

 

“I believe that a few years later we will invite you here as key speakers to discuss crucial topics, and we will thank you for making a room for Dilijan in your packed schedule. I believe that some of you will be running this college one day.

 

I wish you to be happy and find your way and the thing you want to do. I hope that the two years you spent in Dilijan will help you with that. I am glad to hear you feel responsible not only for yourselves and your own success, but also your community, the people. Being grateful is a tradition in this college,” she said and promised to announce a new tradition in October of 2019, when the college marks its 5th anniversary.

 

Lusine Gharibyan 

Photos: UWC Dilijan

https://www.mediamax.am/en/news/society/33728/




Why are so many County Durham places named after foreign towns?

Hambik Zargarian
The Northern Echo , UK
June 2, 2019 Sunday
Why are so many County Durham places named after foreign towns?
 
by Chris Lloyd
 
 
NACKSHIVAN is the curious name of a farm to the north-west of Willington. We mentioned it last week as a 2,000-year-old Bronze Age axe was once found there.
 
“Nakhchivan is also a town and province in Azerbaijan,” says Emeritus Professor Alan Townsend of Durham university who lives in those parts. “The province today is one of the detached pieces of Azerbaijan wedged between parts of Armenia and Iran.
 
“I noticed this when travelling with a 1:1 million map in the area.”
 
Indeed, Nakhchivan is on the disputed border between Armenia and Azerbaijan – tensions between the two countries are such that Arsenal’s Armenian footballer Henrikh Mkhitaryan has pulled out of the Europa League final which his club are playing in the Azerbaijan capital of Baku over fears for his safety.
 
Tensions in Nakhchivan are long standing. For a few months in 1919 after the end of the First World War, a British commissioner and some British troops tried to bring peace to the civil war – but then the Russian army swept in and the British were forced out.
 
But even before this brush with the headlines, the corner of County Durham countryside near Crook already bore the name from the Azerbaijan border. It appears on an 1890s Ordnance Survey map, spelled as “Nackshavan”.
 
Perhaps the derivations of some of our other foreign place names can help explain its presence.
 
There’s Inkerman at Tow Law named after a battle in the Crimean War in the 1850s; there’s Philadelphia near Houghton-le-Spring named after a battle during the American War of Independence in the 1770s.
 
There’s Quebec near Langley Park where the fields were enclosed in 1759 just as the British had captured Quebec in Canada; there’s Toronto near Bishop Auckland named in 1859 as the landowner WC Stobart was in the Canadian city when he heard coal had been found on his estate. There’s Canada and Nova Scotia in Chester-le-Street, which must have similar derivations (there’s also a Durham in Nova Scotia which was named after Lord Durham who was Governor General of Canada in the 1830s).
 
For good measure, there’s California in Eston and there’s New York in North Shields, but none of this has shed any light on why there should be an Azerbaijanian farm between Crook and Willington. Can you help – are there any other foreign place names we’ve left out.
 
 

The Greek Genocide: Forgotten no longer

Emil Lazarian
eKathimerini, Greece
June 3 2019

Endy Zemenides


Raphael Lemkin, the lawyer and scholar who coined the term “genocide” and initiated the Genocide Convention, was working on a multi-volume history of such massacres at the time he passed in 1959. He had planned five chapters on the Greeks – more than for any other people – in this unfinished work.

The Armenian Genocide has dominated the discussion about the massacres perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire on its Christian populations. The genocide of the Ottoman Empire’s Greek citizens has been regularly labeled a “forgotten genocide.”

Enter the Greek-American version of Raphael Lemkin, George Mavropoulos. His parents were Pontic Greek refugees who escaped the genocide, and his grandfather perished at the age of 43, a victim of the massacre. After a 35-year career as an engineer for Commonwealth Edison’s nuclear operations in Illinois, George retired and devoted his life to this cause.

The “cause” is best described through answering both the what and the why. The what is the widespread recognition of the genocide of the Greeks by the Ottoman Empire. The why? According to Mavropoulos, “as descendants of those who both perished and survived genocide, we have a special obligation to educate the public about this genocide,” not with revenge or hate as the motive, but “because we can be part of forestalling the next genocide. That is the best way to honor those we lost.”

Fortunately, Mavropoulos doesn’t have to play the Lemkin role because he doesn’t have to act alone. He founded the Asia Minor and Pontos Hellenic Research Center, which has been propelled by individuals from all over the Hellenic world (as well as Armenian, Jewish and Assyrian scholars) into a major role in the historical discussion on genocide. This past April, the Illinois Holocaust Museum commemorated Genocide Awareness Month by hosting a massive symposium and pop-up exhibition dedicated to the centenary of the Great Catastrophe.

The Asia Minor and Pontos Hellenic Research Center has produced an impressive amount of scholarships and teaching guides for elementary schools and high schools, and is working on multimedia material including a documentary. Mavropoulos serves on the Illinois Holocaust and Genocide Commission, giving the community the chance to place the Greek Genocide on the table when all others are being considered.

With this year’s commemoration of the Pontic Greek phase of the Greek Genocide came a major step – a commitment to sustained and sophisticated political advocacy on this issue. Over the past few years, at the encouragement of the Pan-Pontian Federation of the USA and Canada, the Hellenic American Leadership Council (HALC) has partnered with the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) to place references to the Greek Genocide in the Armenian Genocide recognition resolutions before the US Congress and state legislatures around the country.

“We join with our allies at HALC and the Pan-Pontian Federation in seeking US recognition and ongoing remembrance of the Greek Genocide, systematically planned and committed by Turkey as part of its WWI-era drive to destroy Christian populations across their ancient homelands,” said ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian.

In pursuit of such recognition, the Pan-Pontian Federation sent a delegation representing eight states to Washington, DC, on May 20-21. It was a small first step, but a very important one. When members of Congress see constituents travel to Washington for an issue, they realize how important it is to them.

Equally important were back-to-back strategy sessions with the American Jewish Committee (AJC) and ANCA. The experience of these two groups in advocating for the recognition of genocide and against genocide/Holocaust denial will help focus the pursuit of recognition of the Greek Genocide. As our Armenian allies told us, their advocacy of “over 50 years” comes with a lot of frustration, broken promises and coming just short, but the march toward justice will continue for generations to come.

Perhaps the most encouraging part of the May 20-21 trip was the number of Pan-Pontian Federation representatives under the age of 40. One hundred years since their ancestors started being victimized, these young men and women are ensuring that this issue has staying power.

And now they have more than a general goal of genocide recognition to fight for. When meeting with HALC and the Pan-Pontian Federation on May 21, Congressman Gus Bilirakis unveiled a resolution “expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that it is the policy of the United States to recognize the genocide of the Greeks of Pontus and Asia Minor as a way to prevent future genocides.”

This resolution has been an uphill battle. After all, the Armenians have been consistently stalled despite a well-organized and systematic campaign to secure recognition of the Armenian Genocide. But thanks to the efforts of the Asia Minor and Pontos Hellenic Research Center, the HALC/ANCA/Pan-Pontian Federation partnership and Congressman Bilirakis, the Hellenic world has planted its flag in the genocide recognition debate.

The final clause of Congressman Bilirakis’ resolution resolves that the US will “encourage education and public understanding of the facts of the campaign of genocide against Greeks, Armenians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Syriacs, Arameans, Maronites and other Christians, including the role of the United States in the humanitarian relief effort, and the relevance of these genocides to modern-day crimes against humanity.”

Lemkin wanted to tell the story of the Greek Genocide as part of his commitment to “Never Again.” Sixty years after his death, we can begin finishing his work.

Endy Zemenides is executive director of the Hellenic American Leadership Council.


Sports: Karabakh hosting most prestigious of unrecognised sporting events

Antranik Varosian
JAM News
June 3 2019
 
  
 
 
Karabakh hosting most prestigious of unrecognised sporting events
 
 SAID VOUBA, STEPANAKERT JUNE 3, 2019
 
The European Football Championship under the auspices of ConIFA is the only chance for teams for whom the road is closed to big world tournaments to compete
 
The unrecognized European Football Championship under the auspices of ConIFA is being held in Karabakh on June 1-8.
 
Eight teams from unrecognized or partially recognized republics are taking part. For all of them, ConIFA tournaments are the only chance to compete, since they cannot enter large global tournaments.
 
What is ConIFA, who is participating, what are the prizes, how is Stepanakert hosting the tournament: all the details in short.
 
What is ConIFA?
 
ConIFA stands for the Confederation of Independent Football Associations. It was created in 2013 and involves the unification of teams and organizations that are not included in FIFA or in the continental confederations, because these republics are not recognized by the wider international community.
 
ConIFA declares absolute political neutrality and today has 40 teams.
 
The headquarters of the organization is located in Sweden in the city of Luleå.
 
• How the most prestigious of all unknown sports tournaments took place in Abkhazia
 
Preparations
 
It was decided to bring in the unrecognized football tournament to Stepanakert a year ago, and since then in Karabakh preparations for the tournament have been underway.
 
For all visitors, the fee has been cancelled for a single-entry tourist visa. Matches are divided between four cities, and in a year four stadiums were completely put in order.
 
11 hotels were proposed for athletes, judges and journalists.
 
The authorities also invited local residents to allow foreign guests into their homes as part of a wider homestay programme, to which more than 60 families responded.
 
Gurgen is one of those who joined the programme. His son, 15-year-old Samvel, who is fond of football, begged him to do so.
 
“We have fans here who represent Western Armenia [ed. Officially, the Eastern Anatolia region in Turkey – JAMnews]. It seems that we are all Armenians, but it turned out that we speak different Armenian languages and constantly switch to English. But now I have two teams for which I support, ‘Artsakh’ and ‘Western Armenia’”, Samvel says on the way to the stadium.
 
Guests and hosts
 
Together with the Karabakh team, eight teams are participating in the tournament. For various reasons, the Donetsk and Lugansk republics [ed. unrecognized republics that the whole international community considers part of Ukraine], as well as Transnistria [ed. Also an unrecognized republic, which the whole international community considers part of Moldova], refused to participate.
 
Among the participants there are the partially recognized republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
 
Albanians also arrived under the flag of Chameria, the Italians under the auspices of Padania, Hungarians from the Székei region and representatives of Sapmi, better known as Lapland.
 
One of the most unusual participants is the Western Armenia team [ed. Eastern Anatolia region in Turkey]. This region has no territory, but there is a president and other government officials. The descendants of the victims of the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire, scattered around the world, play for this team.
 
The level of commands is quite different. In the group stage games, it is clear that strong teams from Abkhazia, Padania and Sapmi have gathered quite professional football players, some of whom compete in reputable recognized championships. But other participants of the tournament are frankly amateur teams.
 
The opening ceremony was attended by two delegations – one led by the President of South Ossetia, the other was led by the Foreign Minister of Abkhazia.
 
Entrance to the ConIFA Championship opening ceremony took place without tickets, and volunteers are conducting city tours.
 
The stars of the opening ceremony were the famous musical group from France Gipsy Kings and the famous Armenian singer Sirusho, who is especially popular in Karabakh. Sirusho is the daughter-in-law of the second Armenian President Robert Kocharyan, who came from Karabakh.
 
In total, the opening ceremony was attended by more than ten thousand people, which is how many people the Stepanakert stadium accomodates, but the audience was all around: on the roofs of nearby houses and on the verandas of nearby cafes.
 
The final of the tournament will take place on June 9, the national teams of Abkhazia and Padania are considered favorites.
 
Toponyms, terminology, views and opinions expressed by the author are theirs alone and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of JAMnews or any employees thereof. JAMnews reserves the right to delete comments it considers to be offensive, inflammatory, threatening or otherwise unacceptable
 
 
 

Sports: Young Armenian athletes return from Moscow

Greg Madatian
Panorama, Armenia
June 3 2019
Sport 15:49 03/06/2019 Armenia

From May 31 to June 2 Moscow hosted the International Olympic Forum which was attended by young athletes from various countries. Armenia was represented by judoka Gor Davtyan, athlete Rafik Manukyan, swimmer Varsenik Manucharyan and Marina Galstyan (table tennis), the National Olympic Committee reported.

The main goal of the forum was the dissemination of the idea of fair and impartial sports in young athletes. At the beginning of the forum famous Russian athletes introduced the Olympic ideology, history of sports and anti-doping rules to the participants. After it a quiz was organized. The Armenian and Belarusian athletes took part in the same team and came third among 10 competitors answering 42 questions out of 45.

At the end of the forum a five-hour cultural tour along the Moskva River was held for the young athletes during which they learned about the history of Moscow. After the forum the Armenian athletes returned to Armenia.

“Long Live our children who live and will live in free and happy Armenia” – PM

Arbi Tashjian

“Long Live our children who live and will live in free and happy Armenia” – PM

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11:24, 1 June, 2019

YEREVAN, JUNE 1, ARMENPRESS. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan extended congratulations on the International Children’s Day on June 1.

“Long live our children who live and will live in a free and happy Armenia”, the PM said on Facebook.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan




Armenian minister meets founder of Draper & Association and Draper University in Silicon Valley

Kajoyan Gevork

Armenian minister meets founder of Draper & Association and Draper University in Silicon Valley

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11:37, 1 June, 2019

YEREVAN, JUNE 1, ARMENPRESS. Armenia’s minister of transport, communication and information technologies Hakob Arshakyan met with founder of Draper & Association venture capital company and Draper University Timothy Draper in the Silicon Valley on the sidelines of his working visit to the United States, the Armenian ministry told Armenpress.

The meeting was also attended by Armenia’s Consul General in Los Angeles Armen Bayburdyan.

Currently students from 77 countries study in the University.

During the meeting the sides discussed the possibilities to open Hero City at Draper University branch in Armenia. Minister Hakobyan introduced Tim Draper on the Armenian government’s large-scale reforms carried out after the revolution in the fields of economy, business climate improvement and strengthening of democracy.

The minister also handed over the Armenian Prime Minister’s invitation to Mr. Draper to take part in the World Congress on Information Technology (WCIT 2019) which will take place on October 6-9 in Yerevan.

Hakob Arshakyan said the visit to Armenia will enable Tim Draper to get acquainted with the country’s investment opportunities, as well as scientific and technological potential.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan




Russia’s Putin congratulates Armenia’s Pashinyan on birthday

Chalian Meline

Russia’s Putin congratulates Armenia’s Pashinyan on birthday

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12:14, 1 June, 2019

YEREVAN, JUNE 1, ARMENPRESS. Russian President Vladimir Putin sent a congratulatory letter to Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan on his birthday, the Armenian PM’s Office told Armenpress.

The letter says:

“Dear Mr. Pashinyan,

Accept my sincere congratulations on your birthday.

I cordially wish you good health, happiness, welfare and success in the state activity.

I would like to reaffirm the readiness to continue the constructive dialogue and joint work aimed at developing the allied relations between Russia and Armenia, as well as the mutual partnership within the frameworks of the Eurasian integration processes”.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan



Russian PM congratulates Armenian counterpart on birthday

Aram Torosian

Russian PM congratulates Armenian counterpart on birthday

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12:19, 1 June, 2019

YEREVAN, JUNE 1, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister of Russia Dmitry Medvedev sent a congratulatory letter to Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on the latter’s birthday, the Armenian PM’s Office told Armenpress.

The letter says:

“Dear Mr. Pashinyan,

On behalf of the Russian government and personally myself, I congratulate you on your birthday.

I would like to highlight your constant attention to the issues on developing the friendship, partnership and allied relations between Russia and Armenia. The commercial and investment cooperation is being strengthened, the joint projects in energy, industry, infrastructures, science and culture are being successfully implemented. The integration partnership within the Eurasian Economic Union is being deepened.

I am confident that the active inter-governmental work will contribute to further expanding the practical cooperation and promoting new mutually beneficial initiatives in various areas. This is in full accordance with the long-term interests of our countries.

Dear Mr. Prime Minister, I wish you good health, welfare and success in your responsible activities”.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan