Category: News

Armenia’s Chief Compulsory Enforcement Officer Mihran Poghosyan has resigned. The Compulsory Enforcement Service has issued the following statement:

“My name has recently surfaced in the publications on Panama offshores.

I regret that my name appeared along with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s family, which has really appropriated millions of dollars.

I find it unacceptable that I might serve a reason for any civilizational parallels between my country and authoritarian Azerbaijan. That’s why I have filed my resignation today.

I’ll publicly respond to the publications of the Panama Papers without any state levers at my disposal.”

President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan and NKR President Bako Sahakyan held consultations with the supreme command staff of the Defense Army today.

A wide range of issues related to army-building was discussed.

The Armenian community of Sydney will #MARCHFORJUSTICE in Sydney’s CBD (Central Business District) this Sunday, April 24th in remembrance of the 101st Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, the Armenian National Committee of Australia reports.

Participating in the March for Justice will be clergy from all Armenian churches, Armenian political, youth, relief and cultural organisations, as well as schools, dance groups and the entire Armenian community. The March will be led by the Homenetmen Scouts Band.

Marchers will meet at the iconic Hyde Park Fountain at 2pm. They will walk through Hyde Park, then Macquarie Street, which will be partially blocked to traffic by local police. Wreaths will be laid by organisations at the NSW Parliament House Khatchkar (Cross Stone), erected in 1997 to honour the memory of the 1.5 million victims of the Armenian Genocide and victims of all genocides.

The march will continue through to the Royal Botanic Gardens, where a short program will be held with the backdrop of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.

A statement from the organisers read: “This is an historic opportunity to express our united voice for justice as descendants of survivors of the Armenian Genocide, and remember what took place 101 years ago.”

“It is time, with Artsakh recently repelling another attack by Azerbaijan, for our community to join in numbers, show our solidarity with those in the motherland, and participate in what is a unique event that will be remembered for the ages.”

A number of Buses have been organised to transport participants to and from the City. They will depart from the Armenian Cultural Centre in Willoughby (1pm), the Armenian Apostolic Church in Chatswood (1pm), the Ararat Scout Hall in Ryde (1pm) and the Navasart Scout Hall in Smithfield (12:30pm).

The Sydney #MARCHFORJUSTICE is being held under the auspices of the joint Armenian Genocide Commemorative Committee, and is being organised by Homenetmen, the Armenian Relief Society, Hamazkaine, the Armenian Youth Federation, the Armenian National Committee of Australia, Armenia Media Inc. and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, with the participation of the entire Sydney Armenian community.

The Peace of Art, Inc. has installed a billboard dedicated to Artsakh in Massachusetts.

One of the seven digitals billboards of this year, which were dedicated to the 101st anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, was replaced by a new message “Support Peaceful Solutions to the Current Conflict in Artsakh” with a web address “Help-nkr.com” directing to the official website of the government of Artsakh, where there are links to make money transfers to accounts “, explained “Peace of Art, Inc.,” president Daniel Varoujan Hejinian.

Note that the remaining six digital billboards dedicated to the 101st anniversary of the Armenian Genocide will be up on following Massachusetts highways; Rte. 1, Lynnway; Rte. 1, Malden; Rte. 495, Haverhill:

All seven digital billboards will remain until the end of April.

 

The Armenian community of Georgia has issued an appeal to the country’s President and Prime Minister, calling for recognition of the Armenian Genocide.

Reminding that April 24, 2016 will mark the 101st anniversary of the genocide of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, the community notes that the fact of the genocide has been recognized and condemned by more than 20 countries, including Canada, Italy, France, Sweden, Argentina, Lebanon, the Netherlands, Russia, Poland, Vatican and others)

“The fact has also been acknowledged by 47 of the 50 US states, as well as by a number of international organizations, such as the European Parliament, the Council of Europe, the European People’s Party, etc,” the statement reads.

For the sake of justice and democratic values, representatives of the Armenian organizations of Georgia call on the authorities to join the civilized community of the world, to respect the will of the people of the Republic of Georgia and initiate the discussion of the issue of Armenian Genocide recognition in the Georgian Parliament.

Photo: Reuters

 

Oil prices tumbled on Monday after a meeting by major exporters in Qatar collapsed without an agreement to freeze output, leaving the credibility of the OPEC producer cartel in tatters and the world awash with unwanted fuel, Reuters reports.

Tensions between Saudi Arabia and Iran were blamed for the failure, which revived industry fears that major government-controlled producers will increase their battle for market share by offering ever-steeper discounts.

“OPEC’s credibility to coordinate output is now very low,” said Peter Lee of BMI Research, a unit of rating agency Fitch. “This isn’t just about oil for the Saudis. It’s as much about regional politics.”

Morgan Stanley said that the failed deal “underscores the poor state of OPEC relations,” adding that “we now see a growing risk of higher OPEC supply,” especially as Saudi Arabia threatened it could hike output following the failed deal.

Oil prices have fallen by as much as 70 percent since mid-2014 as producers have pumped 1 to 2 million barrels of crude every day in excess of demand, leaving storage tanks around the world filled to the rims with unsold fuel.

Sunday’s meeting in Qatar’s capital Doha had been expected to finalize a deal to freeze output at January levels until October 2016 in an attempt to slow that ballooning oversupply.

But the agreement fell apart after top exporter Saudi Arabia demanded that Iran, which was not represented, should also sign up.

President Serzh Sargsyan has left for the Nagorno Karabakh Republic for a working visit, President’s Press Office reports.

At Stepanakert Airport Serzh Sargsyan was welcomed by NKR President Bako Sahakyan, the Defense Ministers of Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh, other officials.

Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa has warned that the death toll from a powerful earthquake which has killed more than 250 people is likely to rise, the BBC reports.

But he also said there was evidence that people were still alive under the rubble of collapsed buildings.

Mr Correa has visited some of the people affected after cutting short a visit to Rome.

At least 272 people are confirmed dead and more than 1,500 hurt by the quake, Ecuador’s most powerful in decades.

A state of emergency has been declared and some 10,000 troops and 3,500 police have been deployed in the affected areas, with an emphasis on finding survivors.

The magnitude-7.8 quake struck on Saturday evening. Coastal areas in the north-west were closest to the epicentre.

The quake is Ecuador’s largest since 1979. More than 130 aftershocks have followed.

“Azerbaijan unleashed a large-scale military aggression against the people of Nagorno Karabakh, violating the international humanitarian law and committing war crimes,” member of the Armenian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Samvel Farmanyan said at PACE plenary session in Strasbourg. The full speech is provided below:

“Almost two months have passed since the last part-session of the Assembly. And we discuss here what has been done in this period of time. Evidently our values have been brutally and cynically attacked, first in the very heart of Europe – bloody terror attacks in Brussels, and then on the southeastern shore of our continent – in Nagorno-Karabakh where Azerbaijan unleashed a large-scale military aggression against the people of Nagorno-Karabakh violating international humanitarian law and committing war crimes. Let me join the words of sympathy addressed to the families of all victims. I also join the voices of those hundreds of thousands of people who marched yesterday in Brussels and in different capitals of Europe and the globe since the bloody escalation of the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh calling for peace.

The progress report refers to one of the notorious discussions we had here in January. Let me recall, Chairman, that the voices against the controversial reports by Robert Walter and Milica Markovic in this very hemi-cycle were based on the tangible assumption that any attempt to approve groundless and one-sided resolutions or any selective application to the principles of international law will only damage the peace process and serve as smokescreen for the Azerbaijani autocratic leadership to resume large scale military actions undermining the peace process and threatening fragile stability in the entire region of South Caucasus. While raising concerns we had in mind such development of the events that happened afterwards and unfortunately, our concerns became to be a kind of bad prediction that cost hundreds of innocent lives from all sides of the conflict.

While considering this progress report, colleagues, we can’t jump over the efforts the permanent bodies of the Assembly have taken or rather mistaken regarding this tragedy. A repeatedly clear message was delivered to Azerbaijani leadership since the very birth of escalation that there is no alternative to the peaceful settlement of the conflict and that war is not an option. Presidents of France, United States, Russia, heads of dozens of other countries and hundreds of foreign ministries, Secretary Generals of the UN, OSCE, CoE, high-level officials of EU, dozens of other international organizations joint their voice and reputation to deliver that unequivocal and uncompromising message to President Aliev to stop military aggression.

While increasingly strong and univocal message of the international community to Aliev was a window of hope for peace to avoid further escalation of the situation, irresponsible rhetoric of Mr. Agramunt, came to contradict our Assembly to the international community this time not by ignorance of excessive human rights violations in Azerbaijan but by his exceptionally dangerous wording clearly siding himself with Azerbaijan in that particularly fragile situation. Unfortunately, Mr. Agramunt’s statement came to once again confirm his impartiality as President of the Assembly and empowers media reports about his alleged engagement in Azerbaijani lobbying structures seriously damaging Assembly’s image in the eyes of millions of Europeans and all members of our House of Democracy.

On April 17, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic Karen Mirzoyan received Member of the European Parliament Jaromir Štětina (Czech Republic). Chairman of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Foreign Relations of the Republic of Armenia Artak Zakaryan accompanied the guest on his visit to Artsakh.

The sides exchanged views on the large-scale military aggression unleashed by Azerbaijan on April 2-5 against the NKR and its consequences.

The NKR Foreign Minister noted that it was a long prepared and deliberate attempt by Azerbaijan to disrupt the peace process and solve the Azerbaijani-Karabakh conflict by force, which had failed. He stressed that during the aggression Azerbaijani armed forces had committed war crimes which were accompanied by mass violations of laws and customs of war as well as the international humanitarian law.

During the meeting sides also touched upon a number of issues concerning the strengthening and development of ties between Artsakh and the European Union.