Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian had a meeting with the Foreign Minister of Kosovo Enver Hoxhaj on the sidelines of the Ministerial Conference of the International Organisation of la Francophonie held in Antananarivo.
The parties attached importance to the conduct of periodic meetings for getting to know each other’s approaches and continue the cooperation on a number of issues.
Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan will join the Republican Party of Armenia. The Head of Government announced the decision at the beginning of the regular sitting of the executive today.
“I think the step was predictable and logical to many,” Karen Karapetyan said and explained the reasons behind his decision.
“First, I have been invited to the Prime Minister’s post by President Serzh Sargsyan. Second, any government should have a political support, and our government has first of all been a Republican government. Third, establishment of a new party that could serve as political support would not be justified. With the Artsakh issue and the challenges facing our country we have to avoid any destabilizing processes and developments,” PM Karapetyan said.
Fourth, he said, it is the Republican Party that can be the political basis for implementation of reforms. “The conservative ideology of the party is dear to me, and there are a number of people in the party acceptable to me. From the first day of my term in office I have been tasked with bringing changes to the economic and social life and the system of state governance. This means we must start the changes from ourselves,” he added.
“Fifth, by assuming the post, I became the participant of the process of changing and being changed. Taking note of all of the above, I decided to join the Republican Party of Armenia,” the Prime Minister stated.
Karen Karapetyan said, “the Republican Party has not been always effective because of some objective and subjective reasons, but the RPA is the party that, being aware of its responsibility for security and development, has made the decision to change and has the potential to do so.”
Photo: AP
Tokyo experienced its first November snowfall in 54 years on Thursday, the BBC reports.
Residents of the Japanese capital were taken by surprise, as the temperatures around this time of the year usually range from 10C to 17C.
The snow was caused by an unusual cold front over the city, but above-freezing temperatures kept the snow from sticking.
The unexpected weather meant longer commuting trips because of public transport delays.
The Japan Meteorological Agency also warned of possible icy roads, snow on electric wires and trees, and the collapse of plastic greenhouses, according to the Japan Times.
On 24 November Artsakh Republic President Bako Sahakyan launched consultations around the new Constitution draft presented to him by the Expert Committee on the Constitutional reforms under the NKR President.
On the same day the President met with a group of the Artsakh movement activists considering symbolic the start of this process within such a framework, NKR President’s Press Office reports.
The European Parliament has voted to suspend Turkey’s EU membership talks because of the Turkish government’s crackdown since a coup attempt in July, the BBC reports.
The MEPs’ non-binding vote has already been dismissed as “worthless” by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The MEPs asked the European Commission and 28 national governments to impose a “temporary freeze” on the talks.
EU-Turkish ties have soured after years of stop-start negotiations, which are likely to go on, albeit very slowly.
The International Olympic Committee has required Armenian weightlifter Hripsime Khurshudyan to return the bronze medal of the 2012 London Olympic Games.
“It’s painful to return the medal four years later, a medal that had been won as a result of hard work, but there are rules we have to obey,” Hripsime told a press conference in Yerevan today.
As for her future plans, Khurshudyan said “everything depends on the decision of the International Olympic Committee.”
“There is no decision on the terms of disqualification. I will continue to train until the decision is made. If it is a long-term disqualification, I will end my career,” the weightlifter said.
Hripsime Khurshudyan said she would like to become an international referee in the future.
PHOTO: XINHUA
At least 40 people have been killed when a platform collapsed at a construction site in China’s Jiangxi province.
The accident took place at a power plant in Fengcheng where a cooling tower was under construction.
There were a number of people still trapped at the scene, China’s Xinhua news agency reported.
Jiangxi province’s fire services said 32 fire trucks and 212 soldiers had been deployed.
A total of 68 people were at the construction site at the time of the accident.
Galawezh, a literary festival in the city of Sulaimani that has endured for two decades, is focusing this year’s edition on literature from the Armenian genocide under the Ottoman Empire, reports.
Photo: Wikipedia/ Hanna Zelenko
The Belarusian Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) on Wednesday said it decided to propose a constitutional amendment referendum on extending the country’s presidential term from five to seven years, reports.
The party seeks to extend the presidential term by two years as well as increasing the parliamentary and local council terms and shifting to a mixed proportional and majoritarian election system from the current majoritarian one.
“Using our representation in the Council of the Republic and the House of Representatives of the Belarusian National Assembly, a decision to initiate a referendum on constitutional amendments in 2018 alongside local council elections has been taken,” the LDP press service said in a statement. “These changes will strengthen the political system of Belarus and will lead to further democratization and the development of civil society,” the party said.
Country’s current President Alexander Lukashenko was elected for his fifth term in office in 2015 with over 80 percent support. LDP candidate Sergei Gaidukevich came third with 3.3 percent. Parliamentary elections were held in September, in which the vast majority of seats were won by independent candidates.
The last parliamentary election was the first to be based on a first-past-the-post system after the previous two-round system was abolished in 2013. A majority vote is now only required for single candidates.