The Turkish authorizes are constructing a 8km-long road to Mount Maruta – the highest peak in Sasssoun Province, Akunq.net reports, quoting the Anadolu Agency.
The construction works are expected to be completed within a month. The road will make it easier to reach the Armenian St. Astvatsatsin Church on the peak of the mountain.
Azerbaijanis are voting on whether to boost the powers of President Ilham Aliyev, who has ruled since 2003 and cracked down on dissent, the BBC reports.
The plan includes lowering the age limit for presidential candidates, creating a strong vice-presidency and extending the presidential term.
The opposition sees the vote as a move to cement the powers of the first family, with Mr Aliyev’s wife and 19-year-old son seen as potential heirs.
The ruling party dismisses the claims.
The constitutional changes would also create other vice-presidential posts and enable the president to dissolve parliament at any time.
The referendum comes after dozens of opposition activists were arrested in the oil-rich former Soviet state.
One of President Aliyev’s main opponents, Ilgar Mammadov, leader of the pro-Western opposition party ReAL, and other pro-democracy activists are still in jail.
Armenia’s First Deputy Defense Minister David Tonoyan had a phone conversation with the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Ambassador Andrzej Kasprzyk today.
The interlocutors discussed the situation at the line of contact between the armed forces of Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan.
David Tonoyan informed Amb. Kasprzyk that private of the NKR Defense Army Sevak Khachatryan had been killed as a result of firing from the Azeri side on September 25.
The Deputy Defense Minister deemed the fact of the ceasefire violation unacceptable and underlined that the Azerbaijani side is fully responsible for the deadly incident.
Andrzej Kasprzyk, in turn, expressed concern over the incident and the loss of life. He pledged to take steps to avoid further destabilization of the situation.
On 25 September President Bako Sahakyan signed a decree, according to which serviceman of the NKR Defense Army’s N division Sevak Khachatryan was posthumously awarded with the “For Service in Battle” medal for bravery shown during the defense of the Nagorno Karabagh Republic state border, NKR President’s Press Office reports.
Deacon Hovhannes Nersesian of St. Sarkis Cathedral of the Araratian Patriarchal Diocese, soloist at the National Opera and Ballet Theatre after Alexander Spendiaryan has won the second place at the 4th international Pavel Lisitsian Competition.
The contest featured 48 vocalists from 12 countries – Armenia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, China, Mongolia and others.
The event was held in North Ossetia from September 15 to 18. People’s Artist of Ukraine Larissa Gergieva was the President of the jury. She’s also the founder and director of the festival.
Kim Kardashian has decided that she wants to go to law school, according to the .
During an interview for the cover of magazine, the 35-year-old reality star — who never went to college — said she hopes to get a law degree someday.
“If things slow down and I had time, I really want to go to law school — just something I can do in my older age,” Kardashian said.
Kardashian’s father Robert — who was part of the team that represented O.J. Simpson — was an attorney who got his law degree from the University of San Diego School of Law.
By Raffi Elliott
Armenia is making its mark as a global medical tourism hub, yet to the keen observer, this should come as no surprise. Despite its tiny size, this Caucasian nation has contributed disproportionately to the medical profession, through advances in medical research over the course of many centuries. Armenians have been found in every aspect of medical innovation, from the publication of Mkhitar Heratsi’s ‘Relief of Fevers’ in 1184 to the pioneering work of Drs. Simeon Minasian, Garabed Galstian, and Baronig Matevosian during the American Civil War, though their contribution goes much deeper.
Armenian doctors, medical researchers and inventors are responsible for some of the most important life-saving innovations of the last century.
1- Varaztad Kazanjian: Father of Modern Plastic Surgery
The Invention:
As a young man, Varaztad Kazanjian fled the Ottoman Empire, where he worked in a local post-office due to the anti-Armenian pogroms known as the Hamidian Massacre. Settling in Boston to start a new life, Varaztad started working at a local wiring factory, where his extraordinary dexterity with tools led him to study dentistry at Harvard. During the Great War, Kazanjian was sent on a medical mission to the battlefields of France. Despite being trained as a dentist, his compassion for the sheer number of soldiers with horrific facial wounds he met lead him to experiment with various treatments. The innovative procedures he worked with were often accomplished in primitive conditions, in field hospitals near the front lines.
Why it’s important:
Dr. Kazanjian’s pioneering procedures directly lead to establishing the medical field of plastic surgery, earning him the prestigious position of first ever Professor of Plastic Surgery at Harvard. His efforts didn’t go unrecognised by others either. He was awarded the Order of Saint Michael and Saint George by HM King George V of Great Britain, as well as the Honorary Award of the American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons.
His work helped propel battlefield medicine into the 20th century, allowing many wounded soldiers to recover from some of the most horrific wounds brought by modern warfare. These techniques eventually became commonplace in the civilian world as well. Victims of crashes, burns, and other accidents now had access to some of the most cutting-edge facial reconstruction technology in human history.
The importance of Dr.Kazanjian’s efforts may go unnoticed for today’s casual consumers of cosmetic plastic surgery, but it’s worth remembering that the history of perfect noses and perfect breasts starts with an Armenian dentist’s struggle to stitch up wounded soldiers of World War One.
2- Michel Ter-Pogossian: PET scan
The Invention:
The Positron Emissions Tomography scanner, better known to the layperson as the PET scan, is one of the most recognisable pieces of medical technology today, but had it not been for the efforts of the German-Armenian nuclear physicist Michel Ter-Pogossian, this may not have been the case.
A son of Armenian Genocide survivors, Michel Ter-Pogossian was born in Berlin, Germany in 1925. Having witnessed the rise of the Nazis, his family quickly eed to France when he was still a child. Michel was not ready to let his adopted country fall to the same fate as his birth place. He promptly took up the fight against the Nazis as part of the French Resistance Movement during WWII while earning his degree at the University of Paris’s Institute of Radium. He continued his studies after immigrating to Missouri in 1946, where he attended classes at the Washington University of St. Louis, eventually securing a faculty seat in its School of Medicine.
Why it’s important:
His most notable contribution to Science, the PET scanner is known as one of the most promising methods of detecting early stages of cancer, as well as for monitoring heart disease, allowing millions of people to identify these life-threatening diseases in time to treat them.
3- Raymond Vahan Damadian: Inventor of the MRI
The Invention:
If most of us ever confuse the PET scanner with anything else, it’s almost always the MRI Machine, but that’s OK, because the MRI was alsoan Armenian invention; This time, by the Armenian-American physician, Raymond Vahan Damadian.
Born to an Armenian family in New Mexico, Raymond had an early interest in the physical sciences. With a bachelor’s degree in mathematics already under his belt, he decided to pursue his interest in medicine, graduating as an M.D. from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 1960.
As a doctor, Raymond researched the effects of sodium and potassium in living cells, eventually leading him to his first experiments using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). Raymond conducted the first-ever diagnosis of cancer with a full-body scan in 1977 when he used his newly-invented Magnetic Resonance Imagine (MRI) machine on a patient. Despite controversy revolving around his being denied a Nobel Prize for the invention that many believed entitled him to, Damadian never stopped improving on his important research.
Why it’s important:
By inventing the MRI machine, Dr Damadian discovered a new way for medical professionals to diagnose cancer and conduct follow-ups without exposing the patient’s body to ionising radiation. This revolutionised the field of cancer researched, and allowed for easier and safer cancer diagnosis.
The MRI machine is also a very versatile as an imaging technique. Today, it is also widely used in biomedical research, as well as in the imaging of non-living objects. There are currently over 25 000 MRI machines used in hospitals and research labs across the world, used in diverse fields of research and medicine, including, but not limited to neurology, cardiovascular research, oncology, and much more. The MRI machine is even preferred to CT scanners when either technique could be used for the same effect.
4- Hrayr Shahinian: Pioneer in Microsurgical Techniques
The Invention:
Hrayr Shahinian, M.D., F.A.C.S. is recognised as a pioneer of endoscopic surgical techniques, commonly used in order to treat all sorts of skull-based disorders. After graduating from the American University of Beirut in 1981, he continued on at the University of Chicago’s Medical School. Having completed fellowships at the Department of Head and Neck Surgery in the swiss city of Zurich, and in craniofacial surgery at New York University, Dr Shahinian was certified by the American Board of Surgery in 1992.
Why it’s important:
Dr Shahinian’s new techniques provide a less invasive alternative to older neurosurgical technology. His pioneering endoscopic approach has since widely replaced traditional techniques across the United States and is being used around the world from Canada to South Korea. He has published over 80 academic papers on endoscopic techniques.
Dr Shahinian has since received numerous awards for his work and has secured various patents. he was also honoured by NASA for his work in the field of advanced medical technology.
5- Dr John Najarian: Father of modern Organ Transplantation
The Invention:
Though organ transplant procedures have been attempted for decades, a high rate of rejection by the patient’s immune system made the operation extremely dangerous and incurred a high probability of failure. This all changed thanks to the pioneering work of Dr John Najarian.
Why it’s important:
The medical field that Dr Najarian entered back in the early 1950s was quite different from what it is today. Modern organ transplant techniques were in their infancy when a young John Najarian was considering cardiology as a career option. The first successful kidney transplant in 1954 lead him to reconsider his path, : “That’s the field, that’s something. If you can put in an organ in an individual and save his life, that is remarkable and that’s the direction I want to go.” From that point on, Dr Najarian concentrated his efforts in immunology in order to facilitate kidney transplants, which until then had been complicated by a high rejection rate by the body.
As the first surgeon in the world to conduct successful pancreas and kidney transplants, his invention garnered him both praise and controversy over the years. Despite overseeing the development and manufacture of AntiLymphocyte Globulin (better known through the acronym “ALG”), which helped patients bodies’ recognise and accept foreign organs, for over 25 years at the University of Minnesota, his programme was eventually shut down by the FDA because it had never received its approval. Despite Dr Najarian eventually being cleared of all charges, the damage to his institution had already been done. His research facility had lost a lot of funding, and a lot of skilled researchers.
Despite this major setback, his groundbreaking research and contribution to his field was recognised by many. Dr Najarian even recalls: “To this day I can’t walk down the street and people don’t come up and shake my hand. It’s the most amazing thing in the world”. After all, he managed to save the lives of countless millions with his breakthroughs in organ transplants.
Though the field of medicine is the result of the collective effort that has been propelled by the work of thousands upon thousands of doctors, scientists, and inventors across millennia, one should not discount the unique contribution of the inhabitants of a tiny nation, nestled between the high mountains of the Caucasus. Their endeavours have made now-mundane treatments such as Cancer prevention, plastic surgery, organ transplants, and microsurgery unmistakable parts of modern medicine, saving countless lives.
The Ambassador Auditorium of Pasadena will present an ambitious Aram Khachaturian concert program, reports.
Armenian violin virtuoso, Sergey Khachatryan, will perform Khachaturian’s works with the 65 piece Belfry Symphony Orchestra. Khachatryan is a renowned violinist with many international collaborations under his belt including the Munich Philharmonia, London Symphony and San Francisco Symphony. In 2015, he released an album of Armenian music dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Armenian genocide.
The Belfry Symphony Orchestra is under the direction of Mikael Avetisyan, who is the Founding Artistic and Music Director of the Glendale Philharmonic Orchestra, Music Director of the Belfry Symphony Orchestra, Armenian Society of Los Angeles Choir, Armenian Youth Association
of California Choir and an instructor of composition and conducting at the International School of Music in Glendale.
The coin dedicated to the centenary of the Armenian Genocide issued by the Central Bank of Armenia has been named Coin of the Year at “Coin Constellation-2016” contest in Moscow.
| Name | The Centenary of the Armenian Genocide |
| Presented by | Central Bank of Armenia |
| Nominal value | 100 dram |
| Metal | Silver 925° |
| Weight | 67,2 g |
| Diameter | 50,0 mm |
| Thickness | 5,85 mm |
| Mintage | 1000 pcs. |
| Production quality | Uncirculated, antique-finish |
| Description of obverse and reverse | Obverse: Armenian Genocide Memorials (right to left): the monument to the sorrowful mother (Izhevsk, RF), the monument to musician Komitas (Paris, France), the memorial – cross-stone (The Mother See of Holy Etchmiadzin, Armenia), the stela – cross-stone (Glendale, USA). Beneath – Tsitsernakaberd memorial (Yerevan, Armenia) and inscription “Armenian Genocide”. Around the rim – “REPUBLIC OF ARMENIA”, on the left – face value and year of issue. Reverse: Armenian Genocide Memorials (right to left): the monument to Armenian freedom fighters (Udjan, Armenia), a fragment from the memorial in the form of an eagle (Aleppo, Syria), a fragment from the memorial plaque: a statue of a woman (São Paulo, Brazil), a cross-stone (Antwerp, Belgium). Beneath – Tsitsernakaberd memorial and inscription “Armenian Genocide”. On the right – “1915–2015”. |
| A brief annotation | The Armenian Genocide was administered by Turkey’s ruling circles during the First World War and the years subsequent. During 1915 about 800 Armenian intellectuals were arrested in Constantinople, more Armenian people were slaughtered and deported. Over 1,5 million Armenians were killed through the Genocide. Western Armenia was deprived of the native population. A massive damage was inflicted to the Armenians’ material and spiritual achievements. About 800 thousand Armenians were forced to migrate and scatter around the world settling in the countries where afterwards memorials to the victims of the Genocide were erected. |
| Designer | Suren Simonyan; Aram Urutyan |
| Producer | Lithuanian Mint |
Statement by H.E. Mr. Edward Nalbandian, Minister of foreign affairs of the Republic of Armenia at the 71st Session of the United Nations General Assembly General Debate
23.09.2016
Mr. President,
Secretary General,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I would like to congratulate and wish success to Peter Thomson, the President of this session and to thank his predecessor Mogens Lykketoft.
I would also like to take this opportunity to express our high appreciation to the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for his able leadership.
Mr. President,
Two days ago, Armenia celebrated the 25th anniversary of its independence. In this relatively short period of time much has been done to strengthen democratic institutions, rule of law, good governance, protect human rights and advance economic reforms.
We have been able to make a significant progress also with regard to the social and economic development agenda. However, challenges still remain. The needs of the most socially vulnerable groups have been placed in the center of Armenia’s Prospective Development Strategy for 2014-2025. Likewise, our Government has launched the Plan of Actions for its National Strategy on Human Rights Protection. In this regard, Armenia continues actively working with all UN human rights mechanisms, including special procedures and treaty bodies.
Our new constitutional reform, which followed an inclusive process of broad public discussions aimed at achieving a new and improved governance system with increased transparency and accountability, was approved at a nation-wide referendum last December and welcomed by relevant international bodies.
Mr. President,
The United Nations has a considerable role to play in changing the environment conducive to intolerance, racial discrimination, xenophobia, violent extremism and terrorism.
On numerous occasions Armenia has condemned the crimes committed by DAESH, other terrorist groups, which threaten the peoples of the region and beyond. The war in Syria has a devastating impact on its civilian population, including national and religious minorities who face existential threats due to identity based crimes. The violence has not bypassed Syrian-Armenians, many of whom lost their lives. The Armenian settlements, churches, schools and cultural institutions were destroyed. One hundred years ago Armenian refugees found shelter in many Arab countries after the Armenian Genocide. Today thousands of Armenians, together with other people of the Middle East, again are forced to flee their homes. From Syria alone more than 20 thousand found refuge in Armenia. Therefore, we know what it means to be a refugee and to host refugees.
The Government of Armenia has undertaken considerable efforts in assisting the refugees and facilitating their integration. We believe that wider international cooperation is needed to adequately address the challenges posed by massive displacement. The full implementation of the commitments of the New York Declaration on refugees and migrants adopted few days ago by this august body stands as an important milestone in this regard.
We would like to stress the significance of addressing the root causes of large movements of people through the prevention of crimes against humanity, peaceful settlement of disputes and achievement of lasting political solutions.
Mr. President,
Armenia has been continuously supporting and contributing to the elaboration of the mechanisms of prevention, in particular by regularly initiating Resolutions on the Prevention of Genocide in the Human Rights Council.
As a nation that experienced the first genocide of the 20th century and continues to face the denial of this horror, Armenia reaffirms its strong support to the fight against impunity for genocide. 2016 marks the first anniversary of the UN General Assembly Resolution initiated by Armenia, proclaiming December 9th as an International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of Genocide.
As the threat of violence continues to spread in different parts of the world it is crucial to make our joint efforts for peace and security more efficient. It is with this understanding that Armenia has participated in a number of UN and UN-mandated Peace Operations, thus actively contributing in the most direct way to the building of international peace and security. As the UN Assistant Secretary General noted “Armenia’s support is important not only for its contribution but also for the Armenian history and the challenges overcome during it”. Indeed, history teaches us that the security of one is closely connected to others.
Mr. President,
This year marks the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the International Covenants on Human Rights, as well as the 30th anniversary of the Declaration on the Right to Development. These major documents proclaim that “All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.” It is well known that the UN Charter underlines the respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples as a purpose of this organization.
Aggressive military response of the state to the peaceful aspiration of people to exercise their right to self-determination only legitimizes such aspiration and deprives the aggressor of any claim to authority over such people. The UN Expert on the promotion of a democratic and equitable international order rightly stated that rather than perceiving self-determination as a source of conflict, armed conflict should be seen as a consequence of the violation of the right to self-determination.
Azerbaijan stubbornly refuses to recognize the right of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh to self-determination. As part of Azerbaijan’s policy of ethnic cleansing and aggression, starting from the late 80s and beginning of 90s Armenians were massacred and expelled from their homes. Nobel Peace Prize winner Andrei Sakharov called it a threat of a new genocide of the Armenian people.
This year again, in early April in blatant violation of the cease-fire agreement, Azerbaijan unleashed another large scale aggression against Nagorno-Karabakh, indiscriminately targeting civilian infrastructures and population. Among the victims were a 12 year old boy and 92 year old woman. Three captive soldiers of the Nagorno-Karabakh armed forces were beheaded in DAESH style, which was subsequently demonstrated in towns and villages and publicized through social networks. Furthermore, the leader of Azerbaijan publically decorated the perpetrators of this crime. During the exchange of bodies of the deceased between Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan, carried out through the mediation of the International Committee of the Red Cross, it was registered that the corpses transferred from the Azerbaijani side had undeniable signs of torture and were mutilated. Such despicable atrocities go beyond elementary norms of the civilized world and constitute gross violations of international humanitarian law.
The April aggression severely undermined the peace process. To restore the trust in peaceful resolution of the conflict measures should be taken to prevent the use of force and to create conditions conducive to the advancement of the peace process. This was the main aim of two Summits on Nagorno-Karabakh held in Vienna in May and in St. Petersburg in June. First of all, it is imperative to implement what was particularly emphasized and agreed upon at these Summits – first, the full adherence to the 1994-1995 trilateral ceasefire agreements, which do not have time limitations; second, the creation of mechanism for investigation of ceasefire violations; third, the expansion of the capacity of the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office.
Against all odds the people of Nagorno-Karabakh have been able to defend themselves and create a free and democratic society.
Armenia, together with the mediator countries – Russia, the United States and France – the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, will continue its efforts towards exclusively peaceful resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
The Co-Chairs have proclaimed a rather civilized formula for the settlement – ballots instead of bullets. The proposal outlined by the presidents of the Co-Chair countries stipulates future determination of the final legal status of Nagorno-Karabakh through a legally binding expression of will of its population. The mentality that supports medieval barbarism, as witnessed in April, can hardly accept the civilized approaches of the modern world.
Mr. President,
Armenia welcomes the integration of the Vienna Programme of Action for the Landlocked Developing Countries into the Agenda 2030 as an important step to promote sustainable and inclusive development. To ensure the effective implementation of the Vienna Programme of Action and mainstream it into our policies, the Government of Armenia has recently adopted a national strategy for its implementation. We deplore policies that stipulate unilateral economic measures as an instrument of political pressure.
Agenda 2030 reconfirms once again that such measures are detrimental to sustainable development. The unilateral land blockade of Armenia by Turkey is a gross violation of international law. It continues to severely hamper regional transit communication routes, economic cooperation and integration.
Mr. President,
Armenia welcomes the central role of the United Nations in the implementation of the new and comprehensive Agenda. We do not underestimate the challenges facing all of us – equally we should not downplay the opportunities. More than seven decades on, we must show the same insight and vision to safeguard the future of this Organization and ensure the best possible future for the peoples of the United Nations. Armenia is fully committed to these goals.
Thank you.