Category: 2022

Armenia and Argentina closer: ARMENPRESS and TÉLAM news agencies sign cooperation agreement

 07:45,

BUENOS AIRES, MAY 24, ARMENPRESS. Armenia’s ARMENPRESS State News Agency and Argentina’s National News Agency TÉLAM signed a cooperation agreement by putting a new ground for strengthening the humanitarian-information ties between the two countries.

The signing ceremony of the document was held in Buenos Aires, at the headquarters of TÉLAM news agency.

The executives of the Argentine national news agency hosted on May 23 Armenia’s Ambassador to Argentina Hovhannes Virabyan, whose active efforts contributed to the signing of the agreement, Director of ARMENPRESS Narine Nazaryan and legal advisor at the Embassy Violeta Arakelyan.

The document was signed by ARMENPRESS Director Narine Nazaryan and President of TÉLAM Bernarda Llorente. According to the agreement, the sides are going to implement joint projects aimed at the development of the information field, the promotion of objective and professional media activity in cultural, humanitarian, economic, sports areas and political affairs, the strengthening of the information flows and the rapprochement of the two nations. The sides will use their experience for successfully implementing the joint programs.

The Director of ARMENPRESS and the President of TÉLAM discussed also the necessity of the use of digital technologies in work of news agencies, the imperative of introducing new solutions ahead of contemporary challenges, as well as shared their experience of archiving news, photos and providing multi-genre news.

“Armenpress stands by Armenia for already 103 years, it is the documenter of the history of the First Republic. The state news agency of Armenia is a member to four international media organizations, has signed cooperation agreements with the news agencies of 20 countries in the world and will invest its experience and opportunities in bringing the Latin American region closer to the Armenian reader and making it more recognizable. I want to note that Armenia and Argentina are far from each other only geographically, as the hearts of our peoples are closer. We have many areas of mutual interest which we should reveal and present to our readers also through the cooperation established with today’s document”, Narine Nazaryan said, happily announcing that one more language – Spanish, will be added to the already existing five languages (English, Russian, Arabic, French, Turkish) of ARMENPRESS. The presentation of the Spanish section of the website will be held on May 24 at the Armenian Embassy in Argentina.  

“We consider the signing of the agreement an important and strategic step because Argentina and Armenia have firm historic ties, and we highly value the role of the large Armenian community in our country”, President of TÉLAM Bernarda Llorente said. She is convinced that the news agencies have a problem of “completing their digitization process and speaking with the language of this era”. “In line with this and in addition to the mission that TÉLAM carries out for 76 years, the agency, that is being adapted to the digital era, is creating new opportunities for a direct dialogue with readers”, she added.

The Director of ARMENPRESS toured the three offices of TÉLAM, got acquainted with the digitization and archive services, the approaches of setting up studios that are at a renovation stage, as well as the construction of a visitor center aimed at creating a direct link with readers.

ARMENPRESS news agency was established on December 18, 1918 when by the decision of the National Council of the first Armenian Republic an unprecedented state-run news agency, Armenian Telegraph Agency, was created. The staff of ARMENPRESS preserves its leading position in the informational landscape of Armenia and has set firm basis in international and regional news platforms safeguarding its presence and development. ARMENPRESS is the most frequently quoted Armenian news agency by international media. Apart from partners, the news produced by the agency is used by such international giants as CNN, UPI, BBC, Ria Novosti and so on.

TÉLAM news agency was founded in 1945. It has numerous subscribers and publishes 500 information materials daily. The news agency provides the most comprehensive news on Latin America.

 08:03,

YEREVAN, MAY 24, ARMENPRESS. Three Armenian boxers will step into the ring at the second day of the 2022 European Amateur Boxing Championships in Yerevan.

In the Session 2 A Armenia’s Janik Sahakyan will face Ukraine’s Yelmir Nabiiev in the Bantamweight division preliminaries.

In the Session 2 B preliminaries, Armenia’s Narek Zakharyan will fight against Slovakia’s Michal Takacs in the Light Middleweight division. The bouts will take place at 14:00 Yerevan time.

At 18:00, Armenia’s light heavyweight Hambardzum Hakobyan will compete against Dmitri Cosciug of Moldova in the Session 3 A preliminaries.

Parliament session – LIVE

 10:00,

YEREVAN, MAY 24, ARMENPRESS. The plenary session of the Armenian Parliament launched today.

The lawmakers will firstly debate the package of bills on making amendments and changes to the Subsoil Code, the Law on Mass Media, the Law on Budgetary System, the Constitutional Law on Judicial Code, etc.

UPDATED: Protesters block foreign ministry headquarters in Yerevan

 10:14,

YEREVAN, MAY 24, ARMENPRESS. The anti-government demonstrators in Yerevan are protesting outside the foreign ministry building since early Tuesday morning.

The demonstrators have blockaded the building.

The protesters, led by Vice Speaker Ishkhan Saghatelyan from the opposition Hayastan faction and member of the ARF, marched down the city towards the foreign ministry from the France Square.

Saghatelyan called on his followers to block all entrances and exits to the building. After doing so, the protesters pushed through police lines and blocked the building.

UPDATES: 

12:20 Demonstrators open entrances

Opposition Members of Parliament Hayk Mamijanyan, Aram Vardevanyan and Ishkhan Saghatelyan entered the building after telling police officers that they have the right to do so as lawmakers. They entered the building to relay the message of the demonstrators.

Afterwards, the MPs exited the building and led the crowd of supporters back to the France Square.

 10:54,

YEREVAN, MAY 24, ARMENPRESS. Parliament debated the bill by the ruling Civil Contract Party seeking to enable state bodies to withdraw the accreditation of journalists in case of violation of rules of accreditation.

State bodies will be entitled to withdraw the accreditation of journalists only if the journalist again violates the rules during 1 year after being warned in a written notification.

Lawmaker Artur Hovhannisyan from Civil Contract said the media outlet which employs the given journalist will be entitled to substitute them.

“I think this change is about maintaining the rules of coexistence in state bodies, about maintaining the normal work of journalists,” Hovhannisyan said.

Hovhannisyan said that some journalists’ conduct during press briefings in parliament is disrupting the course of the briefings and the work of other journalists. At the same time, Hovhannisyan noted the duly work of many other journalists covering the parliament.

Lawmaker Gevorg Papoyan expressed opinion that sometimes the society associates journalism with the conduct of individual journalists. “Therefore, this bill is for the hundreds of truly professional journalists, who shouldn’t think that some individual people can cast a shadow on an entire community with their inappropriate conduct,” he said.

 11:10,

YEREVAN, MAY 24, ARMENPRESS. The Russian Federal Agency for Air Transport has extended restrictions on flights to 11 airports in the southern and central part of the country until 3:45 am May 31, 2022, TASS reports citing the statement of the agency.

Restrictions will remain in force in the airports of Anapa, Belgorod, Bryansk, Voronezh, Gelendzhik, Krasnodar, Kursk, Lipetsk, Rostov-on-Don, Simferopol, and Elista.

“Russian airlines are recommended to carry passengers by alternative routes using the airports of Sochi, Volgograd, Mineralnye Vody, Stavropol, and Moscow”, the agency added.

Russia closed part of its airspace in the country’s south for civil aircraft on February 24, 2022 amid the special military operation in Ukraine.

 11:34,

YEREVAN, MAY 24, ARMENPRESS. The Board of the Central Bank of Armenia approved the acquisition of the Armenian Securities Exchange (AMX) by the Warsaw Stock Exchange.

According to the agreement, the Warsaw Stock Exchange (GPW) will acquire 65.03% of AMX.

The Armenian Central Bank issued the following press release on the acquisition:

“On its May 24 sitting, the Board of the Central Bank of Armenia gave its consent to the acquisition of the Armenian Stock Exchange by the Warsaw Stock Exchange. According to the agreement, the Warsaw Stock Exchange (GPW) will acquire 65.03% of shares of the Armenian Stock Exchange (AMX) (967 shares in total). The Central Bank of Armenia will maintain 25.02% of shares, and the remaining 9.95% are the AMX’s own shares. The value of the transaction will be about AMD 873 million, a part of which (about AMD 499 million) will be paid after signing the Share Purchase Agreement, and the rest, after completion of processes established by the Share Purchase Agreement.

The GPW announced about its plans to acquire the AMX in September 2020, after which necessary studies were carried out, a development plan for the next five years was developed, and necessary corporate approvals were obtained.

The Board of the Central Bank stresses the importance of the entry of the WFB as an institutional investor into the Armenian financial market, which will give an impetus to the development of Armenian capital market, and will foster integration of Armenian and Polish capital markets, opening new opportunities for both the Armenian companies and the investors.

Development program prepared by the GPW provides for a number of measures aimed at the improvement of capital market infrastructure, including development of the trading system, expansion of the stock exchange and the Central Depository services, as well as introduction of state-of-the-art technological solutions.”

The GPW is the largest and the developed market in Central and Eastern Europe. The GPW organizes trading in stocks, bonds, derivatives, fund shares and other instruments. The GPW is a public company, the shares of which have been listed since 2010 with a capitalization of about 320 million euros.

The AMX is the only operator in the regulated securities market in Armenia, which organizes trading of both securities and other financial instruments. The AMX is the 100% shareholder of the Central Depository of Armenia. 90.05% of the AMX shares belong to the Central Bank of Armenia, and the remaining 9.95% are the AMX’s own shares.

 11:57,

YEREVAN, MAY 24, ARMENPRESS. No road or transport route in the logic of a corridor can function in the territory of Armenia, the Secretary of the Security Council of Armenia Armen Grigoryan said in response to a question from ARMENPRESS.

ARMENPRESS: During a phone conversation with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev claimed that on May 22 in Brussels (EU-mediated Pashinyan-Aliyev meeting) the sides reached an agreement on the opening of a corridor through Armenian territory, including the construction of both railways and highways. How would you comment on this statement?

Grigoryan: There have been no changes in the positions of the Republic of Armenia. No road or transport route in the logic of a corridor can function in the territory of Armenia. All agreements reached in Brussels relate to the opening of regional connections, which I talked about yesterday in response to your questions. All agreements reached in Brussels fit in the framework of the public statements made previously by representatives of Armenia. You can see in the statement of the President of the European Council that the agreements in the context of opening of regional connections relate to the border and customs control, road fees and organizing international transit. These are important issues for realizing the Armenian Crossroads project and the Government of Armenia will consistently move in this direction.

                                                                                ###

In the context of the opening of regional connections the Armenian government re-formulated the North-South project and is terming it “North-South, East-West” Project, or “Armenian Crossroads”, the Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said earlier at the February 17 Cabinet meeting.

 12:10,

YEREVAN, MAY 24, ARMENPRESS. President of Armenia Vahagn Khachaturyan met with President of Latvia Egils Levits in Davos, Switzerland, on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum, the Armenian President’s Office said.

The Latvian President said he is happy to welcome Vahagn Khachaturyan as the President of Armenia and congratulated him on assuming office, wishing success and a productive activity.

Both Presidents highly appreciated the Armenian-Latvian political dialogue and the dynamics of the inter-state relations and emphasized the necessity of further enriching and developing these ties.

The prospects of establishing lasting and stable peace in the region and making joint efforts with the European Union in this direction were discussed at the meeting.

The Armenian and Latvian Presidents also exchanged ideas about the relevant issues and challenges of the international security.

 12:27,

YEREVAN, MAY 24, ARMENPRESS. Five key topics will be discussed during Orion Summit 2022 which will be held on June 22^nd. One of the most important  topics in the field is the Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A), as a mean of accelerating the growth and maturity of the Armenian startup ecosystem. 

The organizers and partners of the technology summit united around this aim to achieve global impact through M&A, contribute to the growth of Armenia’s GDP, and create a success model for other emerging markets. There are more than 2,500 companies in the Armenian high-potential startup ecosystem, which are a good basis for market consolidation and for the creation of potential “unicorn” companies. Merged or enlarged companies can be more competitive in the global market. 

Arsen Babayan, Director of Engineering at Adobe Yerevan will present about the rapid global growth he has experienced through recent M&A. Adobe is a technological giant with a worldwide brand for consumer software. The company’s most prominent products include Photoshop, Acrobat, and Creative Cloud. Over decades, Adobe has integrated many companies via acquisition which have enhanced Adobe’s portfolio and enabled them to compete in new markets and accelerate digital media and digital marketing businesses. Representatives of other world leading companies will present their observations on M&A; Kamo Karapetyan- Director, Head of Tax Practice for EY Armenia, Diana Arzumanyan-CEO & Co-Founder of Orion Worldwide Innovations Armenia, and many more.  

Immediately after the panel discussion, the M&A Fair entitled “Building Bullish Armenian Market” will open. Armenian companies that are members of or collaborating with the BAJ Accelerator program will present their M&A plans. 

About Orion:

Orion Worldwide Innovations (“Orion”), is a startup growth and ecosystem acceleration hub and offers a full-service package to make companies investable and enter the US market, enhance their customer acquisition strategies, stay competitive, and protect their innovation. Orion is a U.S.-based company that was formed in 2017, with offices in New York City, U.S., and Yerevan, Armenia. Orion partners with companies and investor networks worldwide.