15:31,
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 10, ARMENPRESS. The reports in Azeri telegram accounts claiming that there’s been a “brawl” between Armenian and Azerbaijani troops in the territory of Lake Sev in Syunik Province and that Armenian troops are besieged is fake news, the Ministry of Defense of Armenia told ARMENPRESS.
The Ministry of Defense said the situation is stable and is under the complete control of the Armenian military.
Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan
14:10, 8 November, 2021
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 8, ARMENPRESS. President of the Republic of Artsakh Arayik Harutyunyan has been vaccinated against COVID-19 on November 8, the ministry of health said.
The President highlighted the vaccination as an effective mean of fighting the pandemic.
Arayik Harutyunyan has been infected with COVID-19 a year ago.
Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan
President Abdel Fattah El Sisi met on Monday with Armenian President Armen Sarkissian on the sidelines of the UN COP 26, held in Glasgow, UK, Presidential Spokesman Bassam Rady said.
President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi arrived on Sunday 31/10/2021 to Britain to participate in the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) for the heads of state and government that will be held on the 1st and 2nd of November in Glasgow.
President El-Sisi’s participation in the climate summit fulfils the invitation of British Prime Minister, Mr. Boris Johnson, whose country is the president of the current summit. This is in light of the significant role that Egypt plays both regionally and internationally within the framework of climate change negotiations.
MENA
The Genocide Education Project will be hosting an inaugural Teacher Fellowship Program at the Armenian Genocide Museum and Institute in Armenia, from July 9 to 17, 2022, Asbarez reports.
The program will include intensive training for 15 U.S. educators on teaching about human rights and genocide, with a comparative examination of examples of genocide across time, and a particular focus on the Armenian case. The fellows will also travel to historical and cultural sites related to the workshop themes. The intensive professional development workshops in Armenia will be led by GenEd’s Education Director Sara Cohan at the AGMI’s Armenian Genocide museum and conference center.
Upon their return, the teacher-fellows will lead their own workshops for other teachers in their regions, in collaboration with GenEd. Considering that each teacher reaches up to 100 new students each year, this program will result in an exponential increase in the number of students — up to 30,000 more students after the 2022 teacher fellowship program — learning about the Armenian Genocide and its continuing effects today.
Those interested in helping with this exciting new endeavor that the Genocide Education Project is undertaking, please consider donating to the project.
Russian-Armenian nuclear physicist, Professor Yuri Oganessian will be awarded the first UNESCO-Russia Mendeleev International Prize in the Basic Sciences. The decision was made on the recommendation of an eminent international jury chaired by Professor Jean-Pierre Sauvage, winner of the 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Born in Rostov-on-Don, Oganessian spent his childhood in Yerevan, where his family relocated in 1939. His father, Tsolak, a thermal engineer, was invited to work on the synthetic rubber plant in Yerevan.
Professor Oganessian’s work played a leading role in the synthesis and study of new chemical elements of the periodic table. He has driven major developments in international scientific cooperation that led, inter alia, to the discovery of superheavy elements like the one with atomic number 118 named after him as Oganesson.
The laureate will receive the Prize at a ceremony at UNESCO Headquarters, Paris on 15 November, during the 41st session of the Organization’s General Conference.
Iran and the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) have started three-day talks in the Armenian capital to discuss a potential free trade deal between the two sides, the official IRNA news agency has reported.
The Monday report said that a delegation led by officials from the Trade Promotion Organization (TPO) of Iran had started talks with EAEU representatives in Yerevan to see how the two sides can go beyond a preferential trade agreement that was signed two years ago.
It said all five members of the EAEU, namely Russia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Belarus, are represented in the talks with the Iranian delegation which includes officials from the Iranian government and high-profile figures from the country’s private sector.
TPO’s head of international and trade contracts affairs Mir Hadi Seyyedi said that Iran and the EAEU had previously held seven rounds of virtual meetings to discuss the potential free trade deal.
“It is expected that an agreement can be reached in Yerevan meeting on many unresolved issues,” said Seyyedi, adding that the two sides will meet again in Tehran on December 6 to discuss tariff issues.
Iran’s trade minister will travel to Syria in late November to sign a free trade deal with the country.
He said that the two sides have reached an initial agreement to extend free trade arrangements to 80 percent of goods covered in the preferential trade deal signed in November 2019.
Figures published by the Iranian customs administration (IRICA) in July showed that trade with the EAEU had accounted for some 4.6% of Iran’s total trade in the year to late March.
Trade with Russia, which reached nearly $2.61 billion in value terms, had accounted for 77% of Iran’s exchanges with the economic bloc over the same period, according to the same IRICA figures.
Armenia will mandate wearing of masks outdoors from November 1 o reduce the risk of spreading the coronavirus disease. A relevant decision has been signed by Minister of Health Anahit Avanesyan.
Masks will not be mandatory for children under 5 and people with chronic respiratory diseases: asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, emphysema or bronchitis, severe respiratory failure, chronic heart failure (stages C and D) provided that the mentioned persons have a document proving the relevant medical condition.
Direct participants and speakers at events hosted by the President of the Republic of Armenia, the Catholicos of All Armenians, the Prime Minister, the Speaker of the National Assembly, the President of the Constitutional Court and the President of the Supreme Judicial Council will also be exempt from wearing masks. The rule does not apply to journalists and service staff.
Wearing of masks will not be mandatory during exercising or cycling, as well as in specially designated areas for outdoor recreation and beaches, mountains, forests, but not in city parks, botanical gardens and zoos, historical and cultural sites.
TV hosts can also choose not to wear masks, given they are alone in the studio. People with hearing and speaking disorders, mental and behavioral disorders, cognitive disorders are also exempt from wearing masks.
MP Artsvik Minasyan, the secretary of the opposition Armenia faction in the parliament, says even a pro-government deputy indirectly blames the authorities for misconduct and “he is right”.
Speaking at a parliament sitting on Tuesday, Minasyan said “it would be nice if the executive power was in its place” and the Defense Ministry and the National Security Service (NSS) provided updates on the border situation, instead of “attacking” the ombudsman, who is the “only high-ranking official clearly standing up for the interests of Armenia and the Armenian people.”
Speaking about the government-drafted bill to limit the validity of Armenian passports in foreign countries to two years, Minasyan noted that it has caused a lot of dissatisfaction and complaints from citizens.
"It turns out that you limit the validity of passports in foreign countries to two years, but what about those, who, for example, have a passport valid for 4 years?” Minasyan said. “My passport has expired, and I can't get either an old-style passport or a biometric passport, because there are no biometric passports.”
He urged the authorities to issue biometric passports before initiating such restrictions.
Earlier, presenting the bill on making amendments and supplements to the law "On Citizenship of the Republic of Armenia", Deputy Chief of Police Ara Fidanyan said: "The draft law is aimed at resolving the practical problems arising in the course of application of the law, properly implementing the commitments under the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, as well as further simplifying the citizenship-related redtape.”
He noted that in addition to passports valid for two years, the draft law proposes to extend the deadline for citizenship applications for ethnic Armenians and other citizens of former Soviet republics permanently living in Armenia until 31 December 2023.
Israel was one of the first countries to recognize Azerbaijan following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
That support, which includes substantial military aid such as Stinger missiles and Harop drones, hasn’t wavered. Not even when Azerbaijan engaged in two wars with Armenia over disputed territory in Nagorno-Karabakh.
GV Wire asked retired Israeli Ambassador Yoram Ettinger in a recent interview why his country didn’t instead support Armenia, whose citizens — like those in Israel — have been the victims of genocide. Israel, of course, has never officially recognized the Armenian Genocide.
Ettinger said that it is in Israel’s best interests and the best interests of peace in the region to back Azerbaijan. Meanwhile, intelligence analysts note that Azerbaijan, which is 97% Muslim, is a large supplier of Israeli oil and that Azerbaijan’s border with Iran is strategically important to Israel.
Watch: Why Does Israel Stand With Azerbaijan, not Armenia?
Nagorno-Karabakh is within Azerbaijan but had been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since the end of a separatist war in 1994. Armenia, which also formed after the break-up of the Soviet Union, is 99% Christian.
A second war was waged by Azerbaijan and Armenia there last year that resulted in more than 6,500 deaths. That conflict ended when Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan signed a Russia-brokered cease-fire agreement that granted Azerbaijan control over parts of Nagorno-Karabakh as well as adjacent territories occupied by Armenians.
Armenian officials told a United Nations court earlier this month that “Azerbaijan continues to espouse and actively promote ethnic hatred against Armenians.”
For an in-depth analysis of the relationships involving Israel, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkey, and Russia, read this piece by Daniel Edelstein.