Member of Armenian National Chess Team Gabriel Sargsyan is participating in the 3rd Sharjah Chess Masters underway these days in the United Arab Emirates, the country’s chess federation reported.
As the source details, the major tournament has brought 178 chess players from 31 countries, including 35 grand masters. After six rounds played, the table is topped by Ernesto Inarkir. Gabriel Sargsyan has scored 4 points.
Henrikh Mkhitaryan has been impressive in the last few weeks but there’s still reports which claim that he could leave Arsenal at the end of this season.
This is the second time Armenian athletes compete in the tournament, previously participating in it in 2017. The youngsters are accompanied by Gor Abgaryan and an assistant coach.
Abgaryan has told Mediamax Sport that 4000 wrestlers from 29 countries will be involved in the tournament. They are going to wrestle on 14 mats simultaneously.
“Our squad has 15 athletes, three of them are girls. We hope to repeat the success of 2017 and win medals. Our youngest wrestler is 10 years old and the eldest is 19,” added Abgaryan.
The three girls are Ani Arakelyan, Satenik Aramyan and Shishanik Harutyunyan. The Tallinn tournament is important for everyone in the squad as a good opportunity to gain experience and test their abilities.
All 4000 wrestlers will hold a joint 4-day training camp after the tournament.
By Abdul Kerimkhanov
The new leadership of Armenia continues to artificially delay negotiations on the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict against the interests of their country.
The statements of the Prime Minister of Armenia urging that “the proposal to return Nagorno-Karabakh to the negotiating table is not a proposal to change the format, but to restore the negotiation format” is another verbal bravado, devoid of any logic and validity, said diplomat Fikret Sadikhov on March 22.
The latest statement of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs regarding the unchanged format of the negotiation process, as well as statements of similar content of high-ranking EU officials are a serious message to the Armenian side.
“The unequivocal position of the world community on this issue is aimed at supporting the grounded position of Azerbaijan on the solution of the Karabakh problem. Meanwhile, the actions and steps of the Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan show that he is not only an amateur in politics, but also lacks any understanding of the essence of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, is engaged in the most common provocations in the form of trips to the occupied Nagorno-Karabakh,” said diplomat.
Sadikhov considers, Pashinyan’s controversial statements related to the settlement of the Karabakh conflict are irritating the Armenian society.
He suggested that the speech of Pashinyan, which did not correspond to the level of the Armenian government’s head, was due to his understanding of the inevitability of the return of the occupied Azerbaijani territories.
He recalled that the resolutions of the UN Security Council constitute the legal basis for resolving the conflict, and unequivocally confirm the sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability of the international borders of Azerbaijan, and require the immediate, complete and unconditional withdrawal of the Armenian occupying forces from the territories of Azerbaijan.
Pashinyan continues to do what he likes – cheap populism and demagogy, MP Rasim Musabayov believes.
Musabayov noted Azerbaijan and the world are not expecting demagogy from Pashinyan, but concrete words and actions on those proposals that have long been on the table of negotiations.
He said that before the relevant decisions are taken on the liberation of the occupied Azerbaijani territories and the beginning of the withdrawal of Armenian forces, Pashinyan will be heard in Azerbaijan.
“The time for cheap propaganda and idle talk has long been over. It’s time to make decisions and take responsibility for them,” the Azerbaijani MP concluded.
Pashinyan government achieves ‘unprecedented’ extra budget revenues, announces wage raises in military, education sectors
10:53,
YEREAN, MARCH 27, ARMENPRESS. The 2019 state budget’s revenues will be over-performed by at least 40 billion drams, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan told lawmakers today in parliament.
“This is approximately 90 million dollars. This means state revenues in 2019 will be this much more than it was envisaged by the budget passed by parliament. This is an unprecedented occurrence for at least the past 9 years because for at least a quite long period of time we didn’t have a situation when the budget’s revenues were over-performed, left alone in such huge volumes,” he said.
He also elaborated what the government plans to do with the extra money.
“We intend to raise the salaries of military servicemen by 10% starting July 1 2019, and from September 1 the salaries of public school teachers will be raised by the same amount. I am talking about approximately 38,000 teachers. In addition, this year we plan to carry out various level of renovation of nearly 303 kilometers of roads, which is also an unprecedented indicator for the last 9 years, but we also hope and know that savings will happen during this process”, he said, noting that the North-South Road Corridor construction isn’t included in this figures.
He said the government will allocate another 10 billion drams for implementing subvention programs.
Speaking about the additional 40 billion drams in collected revenue, the PM said: “This is first and foremost a result of the government’s and the state revenue committee’s policy against the black market. And since I predict that concerns will be raised as to what extent can this negatively impact our economy, I would like to note that repressive methods weren’t at all used during this process, analytical, negotiations and dialogue methods are applied”. He also mentioned “cooperation between citizens and the government” as the next important factor.
“I am happy to note that Armenian citizens are truly broadly reacting to the government’s calls that they themselves also have things to do in combating shadow economy. Do you remember my calls that people must demand [payment bills] whenever they buy anything from anywhere, and I am happy to note that from May 2018 until now 65 million more payment bills have been printed than in the previous period. This is yet another proof that the society and the government are in a practical dialogue with one another and this dialogue is giving concrete results”, he said.
Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan
Armenian minister, UNDP Resident Representative discuss cooperation opportunities
11:06,
YEREVAN, MARCH 27, ARMENPRESS. Minister of economic development and investments Tigran Khachatryan received the delegation led by UNDP Resident Representative in Armenia Dmitry Mariyasin, the ministry told Armenpress.
Dmitry Mariyasin proposed the minister to discuss the broad agenda of issues that are under the coordination of the ministry, by trying to find common approaches and communication ways. For this purpose he said it is necessary to hold regular meetings with the team of the ministry.
Minister Khachatryan in his turn introduced the guests on the economic priorities of the government’s five-year action plan, the long-term goals, as well as touched upon the prospective fields of the economy with greater development potential.
At the meeting the activity directions of the Center developed by Armenia’s National-Innovative Center for Sustainable Development Goals, in particular the further use of Travelinsights tool launched yesterday were presented. Minister Khachatryan and the guests also discussed the cooperation opportunities in tourism.
An agreement was reached to discuss separate sectoral programs through regular meetings, as well as get acquainted and discuss the development prospects of several provincial programs.
Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan
Soldier arrested as investigators probe possible fragging
11:12,
YEREVAN, MARCH 27, ARMENPRESS. A serviceman of the Armenian Armed Forces has been arrested in suspicion of killing a fellow soldier and wounding another on March 26.
Junior Sergeant Ara Arakelyan was fatally wounded while Junior Sergeant Andranik Koshkanyan was wounded in the wrist.
The Investigative Committee said they are currently investigating the incident.
Other details weren’t immediately clear.
Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan
PM considers exclusive economy’s reaction to deep political changes
11:31,
YEREVAN, MARCH 27, ARMENPRESS. Armenia managed to maintain the economic, macroeconomic stability even as a result of deep political changes, political instability in the country. And now Armenia has entered a period of long-term political stability which is reflected in the economy, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in the Parliament during the debate of the report relating to the implementation process and results of the government’s action plan, reports Armenpress.
Our activity during these months enables me to confidently state that we will have and already have major achievements in economy. In January Armenia’s economic activity index comprised 5.5%, but already in February this figure was 7.6%, and the two-month economic activity index comprised 6.5%. We consider these figures positive, but don’t consider that we have reached the figure we want. Here the dynamics is important”, the PM noted.
He reminded that last year in September Armenia even reached to the recession threshold. “And during that time there were a lot of predictions according to which everything was over. But we insisted that everything is just starting. And starting from that moment there is a positive dynamics in our economy. And this positive dynamics has a very serious content, and I have no doubt that our policy will constantly and consistently lead to a positive dynamics”, Pashinyan said.
Talking about the economic indicators of the last year, the PM advised to remember several data. Five elections of PM were held in Armenia in 2018. Three PMs were changed in the country, a president was elected, the Yerevan City Council and snap parliamentary elections were held, and a peaceful, velvet revolution took place. He stated that no one can find a second country in the world history where political changes with such a volume have taken place, and this was not followed by a deep economic recession period. “And when we say that Armenia is unique with the political changes that happened and their content, Armenia is also exceptional in terms of the economy’s reaction to these deep political changes. 2018 from political perspective was full of tensions and ups and downs, but we managed to keep the economic and macroeconomic stability. Bur our record for this year is completely different”, Nikol Pashinyan said.
He assured that currently Armenia has entered into a period of long-term political stability which is now being reflected in the economy.
Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan
Pashinyan says Armenia to experience construction boom soon
11:42,
YEREVAN, MARCH 27, ARMENPRESS. Major construction projects will be carried out in Armenia also by state programs, with significant construction growth having been recorded in January and February of 2019 already, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in parliament today.
“Very interesting processes have taken place in the construction sector. We’ve had growth exceeding 20% in both January and February in the construction sector. On the other hand, serious growth is observed in the mortgage crediting sector. In January this year, mortgage crediting grew 77%, and 100% in February against last year’s same period. The portfolio volumes of mortgage loans grew 30%, in absolute figures – 70 billion drams. This means that from May of last year until now citizens of Armenia have made nearly 150,000,000 dollars in transactions of acquiring apartments. This means that citizens of Armenia are demonstrating confidence towards their own future”, he said, describing it as “the best display of optimism for the future”.
“And these figures allow us to say that Armenia is on the eve of a construction boom”.
He said this means that numerous jobs will be opened in this sector.
The PM said these positive figures show the development dynamics.
Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan