Category: 2022

Official: Mkhitaryan joins Inter 

 13:43, 2 July 2022

YEREVAN, JULY 2, ARMENPRESS. Former midfielder of the Armenian national football team Henrikh Mkhitaryan has officially joined Inter Milan after leaving AS Roma. 

Inter announced the signing of Mkhitaryan today.

Other details of Mkhitaryan’s contract are not known yet. 

Inter released a statement which says:

“Henrikh Mkhitaryan has a wealth of experience: he speaks many languages, he’s visited numerous countries, played for a range of clubs, stood alongside players of different nationalities and been managed by some great coaches. Despite his worldly wanderings, he’s always stayed close to his roots, with early heartbreak guiding his journey both on and off the pitch.

Born in Yerevan on 21 January 1989, Henrikh has become Inter's maiden Armenian player. He was born in Armenia but grew up in France. This was because his father, Hamlet, was playing in Ligue 2 and banging in the goals as a striker. The bond between father and son is perfectly captured through football, but their time together was to be cut short after his father passed away from illness at a young age.

His passion for football was established early on and it only grew stronger. At just 13 years of age, Mkhitaryan flew to Brazil to train with São Paulo and shared a room with an older player, who happened to be former Nerazzurri star Hernanes.

Here, he worked on the technical side to his game, played a different, creative style of football and learnt another language. On top of Armenian and French, young Henrikh got to grips with Portuguese, which served him well when he played in Donetsk as half of his team-mates at Shakhtar were Brazilian. It was in Ukraine that he blossomed into a star, first at Metalurh, but especially at Shakhtar under former Inter coach Mircea Lucescu.

In 2012/13, he finished the season with 29 goals, with his style marked by a direct, pragmatic approach with no frills. He’s a player who can contribute to build-up play but can finish moves off too. Next up was Germany, first under Jürgen Klopp, then Thomas Tuchel. The systems they played saw him develop further before he then made the leap to the Premier League, where he played for Manchester United and Arsenal. He spent three seasons in England and, among other successes, he won the Europa League with the Red Devils, scoring a crucial goal in the final.

Armenia, France, Brazil, Ukraine, Germany and England: there have been many stops on his way to Italy. He spent three campaigns at Roma, making 116 appearances, scoring 29 goals and winning the Conference League.

From his house in Valence and now to Milan, Henrikh is making another stop on his journey. As he embraces the Nerazzurri colours, with his Armenian heritage, we are reminded of another Inter great, Youri Djorkaeff.

Welcome, Henrikh!”

 12:08, 2 July 2022

YEREVAN, JULY 2, ARMENPRESS. At least five people were killed and 39 others injured following 6.1 and 6.3 magnitude earthquakes in southern Iran on Saturday, IRNA reports.

According to the Seismological Center of the Geophysics Institute of the University of Tehran, an earthquake measuring 6.3 on the Richter scale followed the 6.1 one that hit the village of Sayeh Khosh of Bandar Khamir Village in southern Iran.

Accordingly, there were more than a dozen aftershocks.

 

 12:19, 2 July 2022

YEREVAN, JULY 2, ARMENPRESS. American business magnate, CEO of Tesla Motors Elon Musk met with Pope Francis in Vatican. 

Reuters reports the world's richest person tweeted a picture where he can be seen standing next to the pope, captioning it: “Honored to meet @pontifex yesterday”.

Musk’s four teenage boys are also pictured.

 14:25, 2 July 2022

YEREVAN, JULY 2, ARMENPRESS. Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) Government Affairs Director Tereza Yerimyan shared findings from her recent, three-person ANCA fact-finding mission to Artsakh in testimony submitted this week to the U.S. Senate panel drafting the FY23 foreign aid bill, ANCA reports.

Yerimyan underscored the longstanding calls for to end all U.S. military aid to Azerbaijan and the delivery of an urgently needed $50 million aid package to Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh).

“Having recently returned from a fact-finding mission in Artsakh, I can bear witness to the devastating humanitarian impact of Azerbaijan’s aggression against Artsakh’s civilian population,” stated Yerimyan. “As many as 100,000 Armenians were displaced. Many schools and hospitals, destroyed during the war, remain in ruins. Countless homes remain uninhabitable. The maternity ward of the state hospital has been rendered completely unusable. In addition to losing at least 70% of their indigenous lands, the Armenians of Artsakh now live upon a landscape littered with landmines and, especially, unexploded ordinance, posing a threat to the daily lives of children and families.”

Yerimyan continued, “Azerbaijan, for its part, continues to illegally hold and abuse Armenian prisoners of war, in contravention of the ceasefire agreement and Baku’s own commitments under international law. During our recent ANCA visit to Artsakh we interviewed a repatriated POW – an 80-year-old female civilian who was captured in her village home, witnessed the beating of her husband, and was tortured herself.”

Yerimyan made the case that Congress should hold the Aliyev regime accountable for the ethnic-cleansing of Artsakh and Baku’s ongoing occupation of sovereign Armenian territory by cutting off all U.S. military aid to its armed forces. She also pressed for a long-term developmental investment in Artsakh, to help its families “rebuild their lives and resettle in safety upon their indigenous Armenian homeland.”

In May, Yerimyan, ANCA IT Director Nerses Semerjian, and Programs Director Alex Manoukian were joined by ANC International’s Gevorg Ghukasyan in a week-long fact-finding mission to Artsakh.  While there, they worked closely with the ANC of Artsakh, which was launched in September 2021, to focus on protecting the rights of Artsakh’s citizens, securing international recognition of the Artsakh Republic, and restoring Artsakh’s territorial integrity.

The ANCA team discussed Artsakh’s geopolitical challenges with Foreign Minister David Babayan and learned new details about the plight of the 100,000 Armenian refugees forced from their ancestral homes during the 2020 war from Artsakh Republic Minister of Social Development and Migration Armine Petrosyan.  Artsakh Human Rights Ombudsman Gegham Stepanyan discussed the effects of Azerbaijan’s ongoing attacks on border villages and the water and gas challenges facing the Artsakh population.  During meetings with Vardan Tadevosyan, the founder and director of the Lady Cox Rehabilitation Center, the ANCA team learned more about the life-changing assistance the center provides for soldiers and civilians injured during the 2020 Artsakh war, while working with children and adults with physical and mental disabilities. The ANCA team also met with representatives of The HALO Trust, whose demining efforts have saved countless lives in Artsakh for over two decades, in part through ANCA-supported U.S. assistance.

 

 15:36, 2 July 2022

YEREVAN, JULY 2, ARMENPRESS. Russia and Armenia have created such close, friendly and allied relations at different levels that it is possible to discuss problems and move forward without additional emotions, Timofei Bordachev, Programme Director of the Valdai Discussion Club, said at a roundtable in Yerevan today on the topic of the resilience of Russia and the West in Ukraine and its impact on the post-Soviet space.

“Our countries have formed very close relations in different areas – political, military-political, economic and most importantly, humanitarian. Russia’s presence in Armenia, and Armenia’s presence in Russia are very important. The friendly ties exist in the bilateral relations and the Eurasian platform. We appreciate it, it allows us to calmly discuss the issues without emotions where our views are different. We understand that these issues could also be part of the friendly, close and allied relations. All issues could be discussed and moved forward”, he said.

Touching upon the global developments and conflicts, Timofei Bordachev said the world is going to live in a period of quite active military conflicts in coming years, if not in coming decades. However, he stated that this doesn’t mean that a global disaster will happen. According to him, conflicts will continue, and the countries, that are part of that regions, will feel their effect. The other countries of the world will also feel that. He stated that now the international relations of countries will start developing in the shadow of war.

“One of the main tasks of Russia, Armenia and other countries will be to raise the level of domestic stability. The conflicts will continue, the wars are inevitable, and we should live with them”, he said.

Ivan Safranchuk, Director of the Center of Eurasian Research at Moscow State University of International Relations, said all understand well that they are at a point where they would not like to be.

“Due to the developments, the situation became more clear, many issues were clarified for us. We should avoid llusions. Through various thesis an attempt is made to cause fear among post-Soviet countries and not only. Our internal feeling is that Russia is ready to give much greater freedom to the post-Soviet countries, but when we are told that no, you are en empire that is trying to capture and isolate everyone from the outside world, this has nothing to do with what we see. Moreover, I would like to note that the Eurasian integration, that is implemented in recent period, has been formed on the basis that we are ready to share our economic growth with the post-Soviet countries”, Safranchuk said.

 16:12, 2 July 2022

YEREVAN, JULY 2, ARMENPRESS. Armenia’s capital Yerevan is one of the most preferred destinations for Russian tourists, TASS reports citing the statistics of Aviasales.

The top ten list of the most preferred destinations by Russians also includes Istanbul and Antalya.

“2.9% of the tickets booked on Aviasales for July go to the Armenian capital”, TASS said.

 

 17:11, 2 July 2022

YEREVAN, JULY 2, ARMENPRESS. On July 4, the Secretary for West of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of India Sanjay Verma will arrive in Armenia, Armenian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Vahan Hunanyan said in a statement on social media. 

Sanjay Verma will participate in the 8th session of the Armenian-Indian Intergovernmental Commission on Cooperation in the Fields of Trade, Economy, Technology, Science, Education and Culture.

Tech Week 2022 launched in Gyumri

 17:30, 2 July 2022

YEREVAN, JULY 2, ARMENPRESS. Tech Week 2022 launched in Gyumri, Armenia’s second largest city, on July 2. 

The event gathered all those who highlight IT development and aim at creating a single tech community, contributing to proportional and sustainable development of provinces with joint efforts. 

A number of events, professional conferences, ggRace, Koriz competition of ideas, Armenia Software Testing Cup, will take place on the sidelines of the Tech Week 2022. There will also be motivational speeches on 12 fields of the digital world, a job fair, etc.

The participants will have a chance to get acquainted with successful Armenian companies operating abroad, listen to their stories.

“We attach great importance to Armenia’s proportional development so that all provinces have the same opportunities like Yerevan has. Being a country with small and few resources, we can’t not develop the provinces. We noticed a gap and decided to unite our efforts and unite with the technological community to implement this. At the moment Gyumri is the second in Armenia as a tech-center, there are many companies here, and many others want to come and open their offices here. This Tech Week will enable to open new offices in the city, and we will witness the continuous discovery of Gyumri’s entire potential: start is given”, TCF co-founder, co organizer of Tech Week 2022, Mariam Hambardzumyan told Armenpress.

Reporting by Armenuhi Mkhoyan