Category: News

 

 

 

“There cannot be any progress in the Karabakh settlement process unless the agreements reached in Vienna and St. Petersburg summits are implemented,” Deputy Foreign Minister Shavarsh Kocharyan told reporters today.

He said the failure to implement the agreements is the reason of lack of progress in the talks.

“The agreements on the reinforcement of ceasefire regime and expansion of the OSCE monitoring group have not been called to life. Without that any progress is impossible,” Shavarsh Kocharyan said.

Photo: DHA

 

– A Turkish government-appointed trustee to the Municipality of Derik in the Kurdish province of Mardin removed the Armenian language from a multilingual signboard on the municipal building.

The Municipality’s sign used to be in Kurdish, Turkish, and Armenian before the weekend government seizure.

Derik is a population center of 20,000 people whose municipality, alongside 27 others mostly in the Kurdish region, was seized with a decree by the Turkish government on Sunday.

Before the early 20th century Armenian Genocide during the last years of the Ottoman Empire, Derik had a sizeable Armenian population, according to the Derik Municipality website.

The government appointed the town’s sub-governor as a trustee to run municipal affairs.

The elected mayor Sabahat Cetinkaya, who received 65 percent of votes in her hometown in the 2014 local elections, was arrested in February 2016 and subsequently removed from her post by the Interior Ministry.

Charged with accusations of terrorism, Cetinkaya of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Regions Party (DBP) remains in detention to this day.

Earlier this week, another government-appointed trustee removed a bilingual Turkish and Kurdish signboard, leaving only the Turkish name on the Giyadin Municipality in the province of Agiri.

After strong reactions from the public, Kurdish was reinstalled upon an order by Turkey’s Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu.

Newly-appointed Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan has instructed the State Revenue Commission to ensure the unconditional implementation of tax regulations by major manufacturers and importers.

Speaking at the first Government sitting he chaired, Karen Karapetyan stressed the importance of carrying out tax inspections exceptionally at entities considered risky, and to refer to small and medium-sized enterprises in extreme cases. He urged to exclude the possible biased behavior of tax inspectors and ensure transparency.

The Prime Minister also instructed the Public Services Regulatory Commission, the Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources and the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs to hold joint discussions and submit proposals on the review of gas and electricity tariffs. He called to maximally reduce the prices for socially vulnerable layers of society.

Photo: Reuters

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has urged Russia and the US to push all warring sides in Syria to allow safe passage for desperately needed aid, the BBC reports.

Lorries with a month’s food supply for 40,000 people are stuck at the Turkish border, 48 hours into a ceasefire.

Getting aid to civilians in besieged areas like the rebel-held eastern half of the city of Aleppo is a priority.

But disagreements between warring sides and concerns about safety are delaying emergency deliveries, the UN says.

“It’s crucially important [that] the necessary security arrangements” are made so the convoy can travel, Mr Ban said.

“I have been urging the Russian government to make sure that they exercise influence on the Syrian government, and also the American side to make sure that Syrian armed groups, they also fully co-operate.”

Asbarez – Aline Ohanesian’s book, “Orhan’s Inheritance,” is among 12 finalists announced for the 2016 Dayton Literary Peace Prize — half for fiction, half for non-fiction. A winner and runner-up in each category will be announced Oct. 11. Winners receive a $10,000 honorarium and runners-up receive $2,500.

Set against the backdrop of the Armenian Genocide, the book tells the story of Ohan, whose brilliant and eccentric grandfather, who built a dynasty out of making kilim rugs, is found dead in a vat of dye, Orhan inherits the decades-old business. But his grandfather’s will raises more questions than it answers. Kemal has left the family estate to a stranger thousands of miles away, an aging woman in a retirement home (Ararat Home of LA) in Los Angeles. Her existence and secrecy about her past only deepen the mystery of why Orhan’s grandfather would have left their home to this woman rather than to his own family.

Joining Ohanesian as finalists are “A Little Life” by Hanya Yanagihara; “Delicious Foods” by James Hannaham; “Green on Blue” by Elliot Ackerman; “The Sympathizer” by Viet Thanh Nguyen, and “Youngblood” by Matt Gallagher.

“Many of this year’s finalists explore the contradictory strength and fragility of the family bond, and the threat that external forces such as poverty, war, and prejudice can place on that bond,” said Sharon Rab, co-chair of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize Foundation. “Through these narratives we explore the sources of conflict within the family but also what our immediate relationships can teach us about healing and reconciliation in the larger world.”

The awards will be presented at a gala ceremony hosted by award-winning journalist Nick Clooney in Dayton on Nov. 20.

Last month, organizers of the event announced that novelist and essayist Marilynne Robinson will receive the 2016 Richard C. Holbrooke Distinguished Achievement Award. Holbrooke was the U.S. diplomat who helped negotiate the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base that put an end to the three-and-half-year-long Bosnian War.

The finalists for nonfiction: “Between the World and Me” by Ta-Nehisi Coates; “Find Me Unafraid” by Kennedy Odede and Jessica Posner; “Nagasaki” by Susan Southard; “Showdown: Thurgood Marshall and the Supreme Court Nomination That Changed America” by Wil Haygood; “The Reason You Walk” by Wab Kinew, and “The Train to Crystal City” by Jan Jarboe Russell.

Inspired by the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords, the Dayton Literary Peace Prize was launched in 2006. It is the only literary peace prize awarded in the United States.

Finalists will be reviewed by a panel of prominent writers including Alexander Chee, Christine Schutt, Ruben Martinez and Evelyn McDonnell.

Arthur Davtyan was elected Prosecutor General with an overwhelming majority of the votes today.

Three of the 103 MPs participating in the secret ballot, voted against Davtayn’s candidacy, another three ballots were considered invalid.

The newly-elected Prosecutor General pledged to spare no effort to come up to the expectations.

Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink would be 62 today.

Dink, the highly esteemed former editor-in-chief of weekly Agos, was murdered in broad daylight in front of his newspaper’s building on Jan. 19, 2007 by a 17-year-old Turkish nationalist.

The triggerman, Ogün Samast, was convicted of premeditated murder and sentenced to 22 years and 10 months of prison after a two year-trial.

Made in Armenia Expo 2016 organized by the Armenian Ministry of Economy and the Development Foundation of Armenia will be held at “Meridian” expo center from September 19 to 22.

The exhibition will bring together more than 300 Armenian companies that offer a wide range of products and services.

Made in Armenia is the foremost international event in Armenia where local industry professionals can meet, network, and conduct business deals.

Given its unique atmosphere of national and international entities, both private and governmental, it is the ideal event to start an effective business dialogue with Armenian manufacturers and professionals.

The goal of Made in Armenia is to provide participants with not only quality products but also a high quality network for each industrial sector.

The Armenian national team has dropped to the 112^th place (down from 102^nd last month) in the FIFA World Ranking released today.

Argentina and Belgium remain fixed in first and second place respectively, cementing their positions at the summit of the World Ranking for another month.

Elsewhere in the top five, Germany (3, up 1) and Colombia (4, down 1) traded places while a rejuvenated Brazil, under new coach Tite, moved into joint fourth place thanks largely due to victories against Colombia and Ecuador in World Cup qualifiers.

Dasaran was recognized as one of the best 5 innovative enterprises in the final round of Accelerate 2030 – joint international initiative by the UNDP and Impact Hub.

For the first edition of Accelerate2030, applications were submitted by 177 ventures from across 4 continents, out of which the international expert jury selected five ventures clearly contributing towards the Sustainable development goals, and Dasaran is among the top 5.

Being among the best innovative enterprises, Dasaran was invited to represent Armenia at the inaugural Social Good Summit to take place in Geneva, Switzerland on the 6th of October, 2016.

“With our activities we aim to increase Armenia’s image abroad and promote it as a modern education-exporting country,” commented Suren Aloyan, Founding President of Dasaran Educational Program.