Category: News

The Rhode Island Senate on Wednesday unanimously adopted a bill, which mandates in middle school or high school the teaching of the Holocaust and other genocides in, but not limited to, Armenia, Cambodia, Iraq, Rwanda and Darfur, the  reports.

Seven states — California, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania — have similar legislation. A current law in Rhode Island only encourages the awareness education.

If approved, teaching is required to begin in the 2017-18 school year. The House passed a duplicate bill in early May.

A coalition made up of members of the Armenian community, Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence, Rhode Island State Council of Churches, the Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island and the Sandra Bornstein Holocaust Education Center have been meeting since last fall to research and draft the legislation.

The lead sponsor of the bill is Sen. Gayle L. Goldin, D-Providence, who said on Monday: “When we look at what’s going on globally, the impact of war and strife, it’s important to place them in a larger historical context, so our children understand the long-term impact of genocides and the Holocaust, so we don’t repeat that history.”

Sen. Donna M. Nesselbush, D-Pawtucket, North Providence, said her district was recently hit by anti-Semitism: a spray-painted swastika was found outside an Orthodox synagogue in Pawtucket.

“There is no room for that kind of hatred in our communities,” Nesselbush said before the vote, “and we will do everything, in addition to this bill, to root it out of our communities.”

Gala Concert of the CIS Youth Symphony Orchestra, dedicated to the Russia Day and the 25^th anniversary of the Commonwealth of Independent States will take place on June 12 with the support of the CIS Interstate Fund for Humanitarian Cooperation  Fund (IFESCCO) and the Russian Government. The orchestra will perform under the direction of the Honored artist of RA Sergey Smbatyan who is also the special guest of the event. The concert will be held in the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory. The gala evening will be decorated with the musical pieces of composers of Russia and CIS.

Among the honored guests of the concert will be the leaders of musical educational institutions of CIS, deputies of the State Duma of the Russian Federation as well as the ambassadors of different countries.

First performance of the CIS Youth Symphony Orchestra was held in November 12, 2007 under the leadership of famous conductor, People’s Artist of Russia, Kazakhstan and Tatarstan Fuat Mansurov. Over the years well known conductors such as Yuri Simonov, Vladimir Spivakov and Mark Gorenstein were heading the orchestra.

Eventually the CIS Youth Symphony Orchestra became a platform for the youngsters of the Commonwealth to demonstrate their achievements in the area of performing art. The orchestra united the musicians from different performing schools, following various styles, genres and trends. The entire generation of young musicians from the Commonwealth got a huge support in the very beginning of their professional career through the CIS Youth Symphony Orchestra.

A trilateral summit on the settlement of the situation in Nagorno Karabakh will be held in Saint Petersburg, the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs reports.

The issue was discussed during Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin’s meeting with French Ambassador Jean-Marc Ayrault and French Co-Chair of the OSCE Minsk Group Pierre Andrieu.

“Issues related to international efforts towards the settlement of the crisis in Ukraine and preparations for a trilateral summit on Nagorno Karabakh in Saint Petersburg were discussed,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

The ministry did no clarify the concrete date of the summit.

Photo: AFP

 

Two Palestinian gunmen killed four people and wounded six others after opening fire at a popular open-air shopping and restaurant area of central Tel Aviv, Israeli authorities say, the BBC reports.

The attacks took place in two locations in Sarona Market, close to Israel’s defence ministry and main army HQ.

Police said the gunmen were from Yatta, a Palestinian village near the West Bank town of Hebron.

Both are in custody. One is undergoing surgery in hospital, police added.

There has been a rise in Palestinian attacks on Israelis since last year, with a series of shootings, stabbings and car rammings, although the number of incidents had dropped in recent months.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who visited the scene of the attack late on Wednesday, called it “a savage crime of murder and terrorism”.

“HIV/AIDS is worse than a war. But this war can be won,” Nelson Mandela once said.

“What’s worse – AIDS or war?” Armenian Minister of Healthcare Armen Muradyan asked, addressing the UN General Assembly High-level Meeting on ending AIDS.

“Where is the justice, when an innocent baby is born with immunodeficiency? Where is the justice, when children willing to live and study in their Motherland, to learn their language, to believe their God, respect the traditions of their parents and ancestors are being bombarded? Where is the justice, when 90-year old people, willing to live their old age at home, are being killed? I’m speaking about the events in Nagorno Karabakh a month ago. What is worse – AIDS or the infection of inhumanity and hatred that affects even the highest-ranking official, clouds his consciousness, turns a civilized person into a barbarian, who orders to kill children and elderly people? It’s hard to answer this rhetoric question,” Minister Muradyan said.

He noted that the coming generations may not know what AIDS is and what war is, if we give a clear answer to the question.

“I’m confident that the coming generations should compare which one is better – peace or prosperity,” Armen Muradyan concluded.

The situation was calm at the line of contact between th armed forces of Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan last night , NKR Defense Ministry reports.

The parties remained committed to the agreement on ceasefire.

 

Armenia is placed110th (down from 91^st last year) among 162 countries in the 2016 Global Peace Index released by the Institute for Economics and Peace today.

The world has become increasingly violent with deaths from conflict at a 25-year high, terrorist attacks at an all-time high and more people displaced than at any time since World War Two, the 2016 Global Peace Index showed on Wednesday.

The annual index, which measures 23 indicators including incidents of violent crime, countries’ levels of militarization and weapons imports, said intensifying conflicts in the Middle East were mostly to blame.

But beyond the Middle East, the world was actually becoming more peaceful, researchers behind the index said.

Armenia’s neighbors in the region are ranked as follows: Georgia – 85th, Azerbaijan 134th, Turkey -145th, Iran – 133rd. Armenia’s partners in the Eurasian Economic Union Russia and Belarus are placed 151st and 106th respectively, Kazakhstan is 75th, Kyrgyzstan is 124th.

Iceland is the world’s most peaceful country listed in the index, followed by Denmark, Austria, New Zealand and Portugal.

The least peaceful country is Syria, followed by South Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia.

Nagorno Karabakh Republic parliamentarian Lernik Hovhannisyan briefed Members of Congress and their senior aides regarding Azerbaijan’s recent escalation of violence against Artsakh and Armenia, during a full day of meetings on Capitol Hill.

In June 7th meetings with Foreign Affairs Committee member Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI), Energy and Commerce Committee member Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-CA), and Armenian Caucus Co-Chairman Robert Dold (R-IL), shared information and insights about the Azerbaijan’s April 2nd offensive, and the dangers that Baku’s belligerence represents to the security of Nagorno Karabakh and the stability of the region.  Among the specific issues discussed during his consultations were:

— The implementation of the Royce-Engel peace proposals

— The dangers of continued U.S. military aid to Azerbaijan

— The value of Leahy Law investigations of Baku’s war crimes during the April 2nd offensive

— The importance of U.S. aid programs for Nagorno Karabakh

Hovhannisyan also held detailed consultations on these subjects with senior foreign policy aides to Senator Mark Kirk (R-IL), who serves on the Appropriations Committee; Armenian Caucus Co-Chairman Frank Pallone (D-NJ); Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA), who serves on the Armed Services and Intelligence Committees; Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), who chairs the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe and serves on the Foreign Affairs Committee; Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), who serves as Ranking Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, and; Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA), a senior member of the Foreign Affairs Committee.  Hovhannisyan was joined by the ANCA-Eastern Region’s Armen Sahakyan and Raffi Karakashian, the ANCA’s Legislative Affairs Director.

Hovhannisyan traveled to Washington, DC as part of an educational tour of Eastern U.S. cities organized by the Artsakh Fund of the Eastern U.S. and the Hairenik Association to share timely information with American stakeholders regarding regional developments. He was born in the Karintak village in Shoushi in 1973. After studying at the local secondary school, he continued his studies at the Khrimian Hayrik School and graduated from the Yerevan State University’s History Department in 1996. He served in the 52nd battalion of the NKR Defense Army. In 2000, he completed his postgraduate studies at the Artsakh State University, and worked at the university’s Department of History as senior lecturer on Ethnography and Armenian History from 1999 to 2003. In 2013, Hovhannisyan was appointed Nagorno Karabakh’s Deputy Minister of Culture and Youth Affairs and was elected to the Parliament in 2015 as a member of the parliamentary faction of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF). Since being elected, he has served as deputy chair of the Parliament’s Standing Committee on Defense, National Security, and Law Enforcement. Affairs Hovhannisyan, the author of 10 scientific papers and illustrator of 8 maps, currently runs Artsakh Public Television’s “Mer Yerkir” series. He is married and has 3 children.

Germany’s foreign ministry on Tuesday asked in the Turkish charge d’affaires over the row sparked by a German parliamentary vote declaring the Ottomans’ World War I massacre of Armenians a genocide, Agence Prance Presse reports.

German parliamentarians of Turkish origin have received death threats over the vote, while Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused them of backing “terrorism”.

He added that they should undergo blood tests to see “what kind of Turks they are”.

Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Tuesday that these comments were met with “incomprehension” in Berlin.

A German foreign ministry source said that, with the Turkish ambassador currently recalled to Ankara, “today the Turkish charge d’affaires was invited to the foreign ministry for a talk about the events of recent days and the reactions to the Armenian resolution in the Bundestag”.

The talks with the high-ranking diplomat “focused on the traditionally close and trusting relations between Germany and Turkey and made clear that the most recent statements made to German MPs are at odds with this and were met with incomprehension”, the source added.

Erdogan had angrily condemned last week’s vote, charging that the 11 German MPs with Turkish roots who backed it supported “terrorism” by the banned Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK).

The June 2 vote further darkened Turkey’s ties with Germany, following recent disputes about press freedom in Turkey and a German TV satirist who insulted Erdogan, at a time when the EU is relying on Ankara to block the flow of migrants into Europe.

The President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan and the President of the Czech Republic Miloš Zeman attended the opening of the Armenian-Czech Business Forum.

Serzh Sargsyan greeted the participants and organizers of the Armenian-Czech Business Forum, which became a traditional event, and expressed hope that the Forum will promote friendly relations of the two countries and further expansion of the economic ties as well as the discovery by the Czech businessmen of Armenia as a land of opportunities.

From the viewpoint of deepening the trade and economic relations, the President of Armenia stressed the importance of the February visit to Armenia of the Czech Minister for Industry and Trade Jan Mládek and the Business Forum organized in the framework of the visit.

The President of Armenia noted with satisfaction that today there are nearly 20 companies with Czech capital functioning in Armenia. According to Serzh Sargsyan, the citizens of Armenia have already had to some extend discovered for themselves Czech companies such as Czech Avto, Chantan, Praha, which imports Bohemian crystal glass, and others.

In his message to the participants of the Forum, Serzh Sargsyan presented in detail the favorable investment climate present in Armenia, current stage of the economy, Armenia’s leading role among the CIS countries in terms of economic freedom and doing business which is also registered in the rating reports of prestigious international structures. From the viewpoint of attraction foreign investments, the President of Armenia stressed in particular two factors – stability and economic interest. He underscored that with this regard Armenia possesses every prerequisite. President Sargsyan also underlined that since independence the macroeconomic stability of the country has been a priority and thanks to wise tax and budget, as well as monetary policies Armenian now has a stable macroeconomic environment.

“Nowadays, it is impossible to attract foreign investments if there is no political stability and predictability. By the way, when we say political stability, unlike some countries of the region, we first of all mean democratic stability based on human rights and the rule of law which allows to keep the country free from political shocks without endangering the future of the investments. Constitutional reforms in our country are also called to serve this purpose,” said the President of Armenia.

Serzh Sargsyan spoke about the comprehensive reforms carried out in Armenia and underscored that along the way the role of
the European Union – one of Armenia’s most important partners – has been significant. With the assistance of the EU,
trade regulations, food security, and intellectual property rights have been brought in compliance with the European standards.
The President of Armenia assured that Armenia will continue resolutely to move forward the agenda of reformation.

Serzh Sargsyan presented also new opportunities for the development of the Armenian economy and foreign investments and
favorable conditions which have appeared with the accession of our country to the Eurasian Economic Union. He underlined that Armenia has a preferential access regime to other economic areas, such as the EU, the US, Canada, Switzerland, Japan, Norway and some other countries. According to the President, thanks to the preferential trade regime offered by these countries, Armenia can export goods of the Armenian origin to these markets with considerably low or zero tariffs.

“We are confident that enhancement of the high-class education and human potential are the most important guarantees of our country’s development, and we pay special attention to them. We have high-quality, educated labor force which can adapt to the requirements of modern labor markets,” said the President of Armenia.

President Serzh Sargsyan thanked the President of the Czech Republic Miloš Zeman for his participation at the Yerevan Business Forum and expressed confidence that thanks to diligent and efficient work, Armenia and the Czech Republic can register considerable results, defining new areas of bilateral cooperation.