With millions of Canadians worried about putting food on the table due to the COVID-19 pandemic and restrictions on public gatherings, the country’s Armenian community has found a new way to mark the 105th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide this year, Radio Canada International reports.
Instead of the usual solemn gatherings and protest marches that mark the anniversary of the 1915 genocide in Ottoman Turkey every Apr. 24, the Armenian National Committee of Canada (ANCC) is urging community members to donate to a program designed to feed vulnerable Canadians in Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia.
La Tablée des Chefs project “Les Cuisines Solidaires” is raising money to provide 1.6 million meals to food banks across Canada with the help of different partners.
Jean-François Archambault, managing director and founder of La Tablée des Chefs, said he was proud to collaborate with the Armenian community across Canada.
“Seeing the serious impacts of the crisis in our communities, we looked for a way to help people and imagine a great engagement of leaders and actors of the agrifood sector,” Archambault said.
The response was immediate, he added.
“In less than a week, we mobilized generous public and private partners, received confirmations from chefs across the province and the support of many stakeholders in the agrifood industry!” Archambault said.
Donations to the initiative have also poured from the Armenian community.
“We are proud of our partnership with this great organization and we strongly believe that as the Armenian-Canadian community is preparing to mark the 105th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide under the current difficult circumstances, it is our duty to help our fellow Canadians who are most in need, in honour of our 1.5 million victims,” ANCC co-presidents Hrag Tarakdjian and Shahen Mirakian said in a statement.
India sends mediacal aid to Armenia
19:51,
YEREVAN, APRIL 21, ARMENPRESS. Foreign Minister of Armenia Zohrab Mnatsakanyan had a telephone conversation with his Indian counterpart Subrahmanyam Jaishankar. ARMENPRESS reports Jaishankar tweeted about his conversation with the Armenian FM, noting that the medical aid sent by India to Armenia is expected to arrive soon.
''I had a warm conversation with the Foreign Minister of brotherly Armenia Zohrab Mnatsakanyan. We discussed the strengthening of our friendship even at the time when we are fighting against coronavirus. We appreciate Armenia's careful attitide towards the Indian students studying iin Armenia. We expect our medical aid to arrive soon'', Subrahmanyam Jaishankar wrote.
Edited and translated by Tigran Sirekanyan
14:24,
YEREVAN, APRIL 20, ARMENPRESS. The number of coronavirus cases in Russia has risen by 4,268 over the past day, reaching 47,121 in all regions, TASS reports citing the anti-coronavirus crisis center.
“Russia has registered a rise in coronavirus cases to 47,121 (+10%) in 85 regions. Over the past day, 155 people have been discharged after recovering and 3,446 over the entire period. Forty-four patients have died of coronavirus over the past day. The total death toll in Russia is 405”, the crisis center reported. A total of 1,935 (45.3%) new coronavirus cases are asymptomatic.
In late December 2019, Chinese authorities notified the World Health Organization (WHO) about an outbreak of a previously unknown pneumonia in the city of Wuhan, central China. WHO declared the outbreak of the novel coronavirus a global pandemic and named the virus COVID-19.
According to the data of the World Health Organization, coronavirus cases have been confirmed in more than 210 countries and territories.
13:44, 17 April, 2020
YEREVAN, APRIL 17, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said he will address the nation Friday evening regarding the coronavirus pandemic.
“Dear countrymen, tonight at 20:00 I will deliver a televised address on the coronavirus pandemic and our actions for overcoming its social-economic consequences”, Pashinyan said on social media.
Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan
17:21,
YEREVAN, APRIL 14, ARMENPRESS. President of Artsakh Bako Sahakyan says the second round of presidential election, which launched today in Artsakh under the current state of emergency, is justified and well-grounded.
“As for the elections we have considered the possible risks and created additional capacities so that the holding of this political process would not create additional problems. I consider the state’s actions completely justified and well-grounded, we do not see contradictions. Quite the contrary, we have acted and act in accordance with the demands of the situation. Our actions aim at creating favorable conditions for our homeland, by ensuring our country’s development, security and public relations”, the President of Artsakh told reporters today.
He added that the anti-coronavirus inter-agency commission is capable of fulfilling its tasks like previously and in the future as well.
The voting in the second round of the presidential election has kicked off in Artsakh today. Two candidates – president of the Free Fatherland party Arayik Harutyunyan and current foreign minister Masis Mayilyan are running for the presidency. They received 49,26% and 26,4% of votes respectively during the first round.
On April 12 Artsakh declared a state of emergency to battle the spread of the novel coronavirus. The state of emergency is effective until May 12. The first case of coronavirus has been confirmed in Artsakh on April 7. Currently, the number of confirmed cases is 6.
Reported by Norayr Shoghikyan
Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan
14:48,
YEREVAN, APRIL 11, ARMENPRESS. The COVID-19 pandemic has seriously transformed a number of sectors of daily activities, however, each challenge is also first of all an opportunity. ARMENPRESS had an exclusive interview with Dr. Yervant Zorian, Chief Architect and Fellow at Synopsys, President of Synopsys Armenia, the founder of the Armenian Virtual College about remote learning, personal development and the changed reality.
Dr. Zorian, how did you come up with such an interesting and useful idea of creating the AVC Learning Zone?
The “Learning Zone” is a new offering by AGBU Armenian Virtual College (AVC) designed to turn each day into a journey of learning, discovering and making friends, while staying home. The idea appeared naturally once the government of Armenia and other countries announced school closures and the shelter in place mode. We thought that it should be our responsibility to reuse our valuable resources in a new format to allow online education and collaboration that would keep people happy and busy while staying home.
Earlier in March, AGBU AVC was invited to participate in working group discussions initiated by the Armenian Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport. As an educational institution with over 10 years of experience in online education, AVC immediately took the action to redeploy AVC’s unique capabilities to meet the immediate needs of our Armenian communities during this global covid19 pandemic. So, we launched the AVC Learning Zone initiative on March 26, free for all participants.
With a primary goal of encouraging self-education during this crisis and allowing discoveries in a way that is actually exciting and fun, the Learning Zone offers daily themes covering interesting aspects of Armenian heritage and identity, which includes Armenian culture, language, history, religion, architecture, cuisine, and chess. These daily topics are mostly derived from AVC’s interactive eBooks, multimedia courses and virtual tours, and are made available in seven languages: Eastern and Western Armenian, English, French, Russian, Spanish and Turkish. The Learning Zone also offers opportunities to collaborate among the participants, through interactive daily meetup sessions, forums, group projects, and other activities to create virtual social communication among participants worldwide. It’s noteworthy that the Learning Zone was publicly endorsed by the Armenian Minister of Education Arayik Harutyunyan and supported by the Diaspora communities and prominent people of Armenian descent around the globe.
Dr. Zorian, a few days ago the AVC Learning Zone hosted a masterclass with the Armenian Chess Champion of 2017 Hovhannes Gabuzyan. What made that event so special? What were the advantages of the online masterclass?
Indeed, as the meetup session for yesterday’s daily theme on chess, AVC Learning Zone in cooperation with the Armenian Chess Federation hosted an online masterclass with the Armenian Chess Champion of 2017 Grandmaster Hovhannes Gabuzyan, as the Chess is a key element of our Armenian heritage, therefore we decided to pay a special tribute to it.
What was special about the online event is that it allowed anyone interested in chess to join a free online class via Zoom with a professional chess player who could answer all the questions in real-time. It’s important to note that the masterclass was held in multiple instruction languages therefore it was available for a wide audience. We were pleased to see a great interest in chess among the AVC Learning Zone, especially the young generation. Given the high demand for chess classes, AVC plans to offer new online chess sessions with Armenian champions.
Dr. Zorian, could you please tell us how to register and attend these sessions?
Registering at the AVC Learning Zone is very easy, you simply visit our website www.avc-agbu.org, choose your language and sign up, of course, free of charge. In case you need further instructions, see our video guides posted on our web site, social media pages, Facebook, YouTube, etc., or just contact our IT help.
AVC Learning Zone has been functioning for two weeks already. How would you evaluate its progress?
Ever since its launch, the AVC Learning Zone is becoming more popular day over day. We are happy to witness very positive interactions. It’s so overwhelming seeing how the public benefits from using the Learning Zone, which is a product of combining the advantages of multimedia digital technologies and interactive collaboration. In addition, the enrollment to our regular quarterly courses, I mean the current AVC Spring Term, has attracted three times more students than our average. Also, it is worth mentioning that AGBU offers several other digital educational resources, including learning applications for children, concise web talks on a variety of topics, and most importantly the Atlas platform, which contains a wide range of curated digital educational resources from a variety of providers.
Dr. Zorian, you perfectly combine the roles of a Fellow and Chief Architect at the #1EDA company Synopsys and the President of Synopsys Armenia. At the same time, you exemplify the devoted Armenian patriot who initiates and puts into action numerous projects that contribute to the prosperity of Armenian and preservation of the Armenian identity… How do you manage to do that?
That’s a difficult question to answer (smiling). But I will try to formulate it in a simple way – I do love what I do. On the one hand, Science and engineering are my passion, and as a fellow and chief architect at Synopsys, I enjoy working with my US and Armenia teams to bring into market new innovative products that help make our surrounding smarter, safer and more secure. As the President of Synopsys Armenia, I am responsible for driving R&D activities in Armenia that support Synopsys’ strategy to maintain its leadership in microelectronics. On the other hand, it gives me pleasure to contribute to the prosperity of Armenia, via supporting the IT industry and pushing the technological innovation in Armenia to the next level. And this objective is quite accomplishable by cooperating with academia, government, and the business community.
The rest of my other initiatives are also meant to serve my nation by boosting the Armenian identity in Diaspora and strengthening the prosperity of the homeland, which are the precisely the objectives of AGBU – with this, I just continue my family’s tradition to perform my responsibilities through this dedicated global organization.
I think every Armenian around the globe should do his/her best, and we can only do so by staying connected and merging our efforts and resources. In order to keep Armenians connected, last fall together with Serj Tankian, Eric Esrailian and Alexis Ohanian, we co-founded a new pan-Armenian platform called HyeConnect.
That same year during the visit of the Prime Minister to Silicon Valley, I was very pleased to sign an agreement on behalf of AGBU Silicon Valley with the Minister of HighTech Industry, launching the “Armenian Virtual Bridge” program to proactively support the Armenian IT startups by providing them incubation and acceleration periods in Silicon Valley. This new partnership between AGBU and the Armenian government will formalize, support and expand what we have been already doing as AGBU Silicon Valley for many years.
In 2019, we also launched an Armenian branch of IEEE Computer Society. IEEE is the world's largest technical professional organization for the advancement of technology. As an organization that fosters technological innovation and excellence, it gives a great opportunity for Armenian professionals to be integrated into the worldwide community and help to better contribute to the advancement of the high tech industry of Armenia, as well as raising its visibility on a global scale.
Beyond the abovementioned achievements, is there any dream, which for some reason you couldn’t fulfill or haven’t fulfilled yet?
I believe that education is the means to prosperity. I am dreaming of a day when every school in Armenia including rural villages will be fully equipped with state-of-the-art interactive and immersive online learning solutions, of course with their corresponding infrastructure, so our kids will have access to first-class education and thus allow the best chances of prosperity as a nation.
Interview by Gayane Markosyan
13:39, 31 March, 2020
YEREVAN, MARCH 31, ARMENPRESS. Candidate for the president of the Republic of Artsakh Vitaly Balasanyan says he has voted for the security of Artsakh and justice.
“I came to voting with my family. I voted for the security of Artsakh and for justice”, he said.
The presidential candidate said that they haven’t recorded any violation during election yet.
The presidential and parliamentary elections kicked off in the Republic of Artsakh on March 31. 14 candidates are running for the president of the Republic and 12 political parties for the parliament.
Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan