Category: News

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan held consultations on the current state and perspectives of development of Armenian-German economic ties, the ongoing joint programs and achievements.

Taking into consideration that the Armenian President is going to visit Germany in the near future, the regular sitting of the Armenian-German Inter-Governmental Commission and a business forum are scheduled this year, the discussions focused on preparatory works.

“Germany is our country’s number one partner among the EU member states. The commodity turnover has fluctuated between 350 and 450 mln USD over the past 5-6 years. There are tens of companies with German capital functioning in Armenia, which certainly contribute to the development of our country,” President Sargsyan said.

The President said membership in the Eurasian Economic Union is a new opportunity for inviting European countries to invest in Armenia and thus enter the EEU market.

The President stressed the importance of partnership with the German Development Bank (KFW) and praised Germany’s technical assistance. “Germany is a second donor country for Armenia after the United States. Germany has provided hundreds of millions of dollars in technical assistance to Armenia,” the President said.

Armenia’s Ambassador to Germany A shot Smbatyan briefed the President on the current state of Armenian-German trade relations, the dynamics of development, the ongoing and future programs, the perspectives of cooperation in a number of spheres of reciprocal interest – information and communication technologies, tourism, healthcare, education and others.

The Holocaust, the Armenian Genocide, atrocities in Africa and genocide of Native peoples in the Americas are among several important topics to be covered at this year’s Genocide Awareness Week at Scottsdale Community College,  according to the

The fourth annual “Genocide Awareness Week: Not On Our Watch” will be April 11-16.

Among the highlights will be the return of 90-year-old Holocaust survivor Oskar Knoblauch to share his story of survival and forgiveness. Knoblauch’s first-hand account is part of an impressive week-long lineup of talks and discussions with genocide survivors, scholars and humanitarians and activists.

Other periods of genocide to be covered include the Syrian civil war, Armenian mass killing, and genocidal eruptions around the globe.

Exhibit on “Iconic Images of the Armenian Genocide”  will be in the SC Lobby throughout April. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. will provide a photographic essay on the Holocaust during the conference.

Ashot Ghulyan, President of the National Assembly of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic, sent a message to David Ralston, Speaker of Georgia’s House of Representatives, for adoption of a resolution recognizing Artsakh. Letters were also sent to the co-authors of the resolution.

“The independence and sovereignty of Artsakh are irreversible realities based on democratic values. Democracy is the pillar of security of the people of Artsakh,” Mr. Ghulyan said.

“The appreciation of Nagorno Karabakh Republic’s aspirations to create a democratic state and the success achieved on that route by our colleagues in the Georgian Parliament is important to us,” the Speaker stressed in the letters.

On March 3 the State of Georgia , resolution honoring and recognizing the the Nagorno Karabakh Republic.

Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian has blamed Azerbaijan for lack of solution to the Karabakh conflict. “We have always appreciated the efforts of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs. Azerbaijan is to blame for the lack of solution to the Karabakh conflict, not the Co-Chairs or Armenia,” Minister Nalbandian said in an interview with Russian Kommersant Daily.

“The Karabakh conflict is one of the rare cases where countries like Russia, the US and France have a common approach. They have made concrete proposals reflected in five statements by Presidents of the co-chairing countries that could lead to a settlement,” Edward Nalbandian said. He noted that while Armenia has accepted the proposals, Azerbaijan continues to pretend there have not been any [statements] at all,” he said.

Minister Nalbandian stressed that “there is no alternative to peace talks” and reiterated Armenia’s willingness to continue to works with the Co-Chairs towards a peaceful resolution of the issue.

Speaking about the military-technical cooperation between Yerevan and Moscow, as well as the supply of Russian weapons to Azerbaijan, the Armenian Foreign Minister said: “We have to make efforts to keep the balance in the region and exclude new escalation. It’s well known that Azerbaijan has considerably increased its military expenses, with the military budget reaching several billion dollars. Under these conditions Armenia has to make efforts to keep the balance of power in the region.”

“We have allied relations with Russia and close military-technical cooperation. It’s no secret that we are buying weapons primarily from Russia. The fact that Russia sells weapons to different countries is natural, because Russia is one of the largest producers of armament and is very competitive on the market. Of course we cannot be delighted by the fact that Azerbaijan buys weapons from Russia and threatens to launch new war every day. We cannot be content with the fact that Baku is buying weapons from our partner, which is trying hard in cooperation with Armenia and within the framework of the CSTO to maintain peace and stability in our region,” Minister Nalbandian said.

As for the perspectives of military-technical relations with Russia, the Armenian Foreign Minister said “the close cooperation will continue into future.”

Scientist Stephen Hawking has paid tribute to the teacher who inspired his early steps into scholarship, the reports. 

He says Dikran Tahta at St Albans School opened his eyes to maths, which he describes as the “blueprint of the universe”.

“My handwriting was bad, and I could be lazy. Many teachers were boring. Not Mr Tahta,” said the physicist.

Prof Hawking was speaking ahead of this weekend’s award of the Global Teacher Prize.

The award-winning scientist has recorded a video commending his teacher, who died in 2006.

“His classes were lively and exciting. Everything could be debated. Together we built my first computer, it was made with electro-mechanical switches,” said Prof Hawking.

“Thanks to Mr Tahta, I became a professor of mathematics at Cambridge, a position once held by Isaac Newton.”

Prof Hawking said that “behind every exceptional person, there is an exceptional teacher”.

Dikran Tahta’s family settled in Manchester after the Armenian Genocide. Much of his childhood, and the influence of his Armenian religious upbringing, is reflected upon in his penultimate book Ararat Associations, in which he notes how his parents were keen for their children to have an English education, yet made sure that they spoke Armenian at home. He was christened by Bishop Tourian in the Armenian Church in Manchester, and his name Dikran was shortened to Dick, but he never forgot his Armenian roots.

French authorities have seized documents from the French Football Federation (FFF) in connection with Switzerland’s criminal investigation into ex-FIFA president Sepp Blatter, the BBC reports.

According to Switzerland’s office of the attorney general, the documents are connected to “the suspected payment of 2m Swiss francs.”

It said the search in Paris was carried out at Switzerland’s request.

The criminal investigation into Blatter, 79, began in September.

The office of the Swiss attorney general said the FFF consented to the search of its Paris base, which was carried out on Tuesday.

Swiss prosecutors have accused Blatter of criminal mismanagement or misappropriation over a TV rights deal and of a “disloyal payment” to suspended Uefa president Michel Platini.

Blatter, who served as head of world football’s governing body from 1998 until 2015, and Frenchman Platini have denied any wrongdoing.

The pair have been suspended from all football-related activities for six years after a FIFA ethics committee investigation found them guilty of breaches surrounding the payment to Platini in 2011.

The Armenian Research Center at the University of Michigan-Dearborn will host an unprecedented, multi-disciplinary, international academic conference on “Armenians and the Cold War” on the university’s campus from April 1-3. Thirty scholars from North and South America, Europe, and Armenia will participate in the conference, the reports.

On the international arena, the Cold War extended from the end of Word War II in 1945 to the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991. Armenians around the world, however, had become divided between pro- and anti-Soviet factions as soon as Communists had gotten hold of Eastern Armenia in late 1920’s. The first panel of the conference (featuring speakers Garabet K. Moumdjian, Vahe Sahakyan, and Hazel Antaramian Hofman) will focus on the period from the 1920’s to 1947, and will attempt to explain the political dynamics among Armenians, especially in the diaspora, before the rest of the world formally entered the Cold War era. Discussions during this panel will constitute an important step toward finding out what exactly changed in the Armenian Diaspora and in the relations between the Soviet Armenian homeland and the diaspora with the onset of the global Cold War in the mid-1940’s.

The Cold War inevitably affected the Armenians, not only in Soviet Armenia, but also in the many Armenian communities scattered across the world. This time period will be discussed at the conference through a series of regional panels: Levon Chorbajian, Gregory Aftandilian, and Benjamin F. Alexander will focus on North America. Jirair Jolakian and Astrig Atamian will present papers on conditions among the Armenians in France. Developments in South America will be covered through presentations by Vartan Matiossian, Heitor Loureiro, and Khatchik DerGhougassian. Furthermore, there will be five separate papers on the Armenian communities in the Middle East by Hratch Tchilingirian, James Stocker, Khatchig Mouradian, Eldad Ben-Aharon, and Emre Can Dağlıoğlu. These panels are structured in such a way so as to generate discussion on comparing the specifics of the Cold War fault-lines in various Armenian-inhabited localities and determining the differences in Cold-War-era, intra-Armenian conflict and rivalry from one continent to another. There will also be a separate panel on relations between Soviet Armenia and the Armenian Diaspora during this period (speakers: Nélida Boulgourdjian and Gevorg Petrosyan). A roundtable discussion comparing the chronologies of the global Cold War and the Armenian “Cold War” will cap the political history debate at the conference.

The last two panels will deal with case studies of the impact of the Cold War on Armenian historiography (speakers: Samvel Grigoryan and Anush Hovhannisyan), arts (Neery Melkonian), and popular culture (Tigran Matosyan). Thereafter, the conference will conclude with a second roundtable discussion that will tackle the legacy of the Cold War on Armenians today and make recommendations for future research in this domain.

Panel chairs and discussants also include Cam Amin, Kevork Bardakjian, Tamar Boyadjian, Richard G. Hovannisian, Asbed Kotchikian, Simon Payaslian, Pam Pennock, Ara Sanjian, and Sally Howell.

The goal of the conference organizers is to shed light and encourage further research on a pivotal period in modern Armenian history, the study of which is still in its infancy. By approaching the topic from various angles and disciplines, they hope that this gathering will encourage others to delve into the details of Armenian history in the Cold War era. Moreover, themes like the impact of the Cold War on Armenian literature, migration to and from Soviet Armenia, or the involvement of individual Armenians in espionage on both sides of the international political divide of the Cold War era should also be tackled in the near future. These topics were among those listed in the conference’s call for papers, but the organizers did not receive any proposals.

The conference, which is open to the public, is being supported by the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR); the Armenian Communities Department of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation is providing assistance to participants from Armenia. The Armenian Review will devote a special issue to academic articles based on the papers to be delivered at this conference.

The Armenian Research Center was established by Dr. Dennis R. Papazian in 1985, with financial support from the Knights of Vartan organization and particularly from the late Edward and Helen Mardigian. It remains devoted to documentation, research, and publications in the field of Armenian Studies.

President Serzh Sargsyan has issued a congratulatory message on International Women’s Day.

“Today we are glorifying our women, the protectors of the warmth of our families and the maturity of the society,” the President said.

“Today our women play a greater role in our country than ever. This trend will further deepen as a result of the Constitutional changes. The growing role of women in Armenia will, in turn, strengthen the guidelines of peaceful co-existence, fair work and creativity, which we really prioritize,” the message reads.

Triada Studio, the Armenia-based creator of the Apple Design Award-winning Shadowmatic Game, is the latest technology firm to call upon the Obama Administration to negotiate a bilateral U.S.-Armenia Double Tax Treaty, reported the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA).

In a letter sent today to President Obama, Triada Studio CEO Ara Aghamyan explained that his company is helping to drive the growth of Armenia’s tech economy, contributing to the expansion of U.S.-Armenia commerce, and – more broadly – fostering Armenia’s continued integration into the international community.”  He noted, however, that: “Unfortunately, barriers to continued progress remain, including the prospect of double taxation.  A U.S.-Armenia Double Tax Treaty would eliminate this risk, establishing a clear legal framework for companies that operate in both jurisdictions.”

Triada Studio joins Armenian technology firms, such as PicsArt, and global business leaders Microsoft, FedEx, NASDAQ, Marriott, Grant Thornton and others that have been on record for years supporting stronger bilateral economic relations efforts, including through a Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA), which was adopted in May, 2015, and a modern Double Tax Treaty.  Other firms in support of these common sense measures include: Ameria Banking Group, Prudence Legal Advisory and Counseling, Baker TilleyArmenia, Synergy, Tufenkian Heritage Hotels, Altacode, Leda Campus LLC, Levon Travel, Unicomp, Synopsys, Megerian Carpet, National Instruments, Mentor Graphics, First Mortgage, Geoteam, Hylink, LC Distribution, and Linkgard Systems.

In August of last year, senior ANCA officials met with U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew in Washington, DC to press for a new U.S.-Armenia Double Tax Treaty.  The current treaty governing double taxation issues between the two countries is the 1973 U.S.-U.S.S.R. Tax Treaty, an outdated forty year-old accord.  The lack of an updated double tax treaty between the United States and Armenia creates legal uncertainty that deters potential U.S. investors, diverts investment flows and disadvantages American businesses seeking to invest in the Republic of Armenia.

U.S. Representatives Judy Chu (D-CA) and Ted Lieu (D-CA) have appealed to Treasury Secretary Lew to begin negotiations for new Double Tax Treaty to address these concerns.