14-YEAR-OLD BOY RUN OVER IN ARMENIA
news.am
May 18, 2011 | 17:49
Meghri police department was alerted on May 17 that Vaz 21 ran over
a 14-year-old boy in Meghri town, Syunik region of Armenia.
The driver Andreas S. ran over Figaro Kh. The injured was immediately
transferred to Meghri hospital, the press service of Armenian police
informed Armenian News-NEWS.am. The police are investigating the
accident.
“OSSYANE” AU THEATRE 13
Stephane
armenews.com
mercredi 18 mai 2011
Saga epique et familiale, Ossyane est une plongee tumultueuse dans
les souvenirs d’un homme jusqu’aux racines de son histoire. On y
traverse les amours, les drames et les esperances d’une famille
levantine dechiree par les haines, les guerres et le desir obstine
de vivre malgre tout ensemble.
À travers le genocide armenien sous l’Empire Ottoman, la France occupee
et le regime de Vichy, l’embrasement du conflit israelo-palestinien et
la guerre civile du Liban, trois generations d’hommes et de femmes,
unis par le refus de la haine, s’aiment et se tiennent la main au
milieu des massacres.
Ossyane Ketabdar est l’un d’eux. Mais pour l’amour qui le lie a
Clara Emden, jeune juive rencontree dans les reseaux clandestins
de la resistance francaise, le prix a payer sera celui de sa
raison. Après des annees d’egarement, une profonde amitie et une
apparition miraculeuse lui seront necessaires pour relever la tete
et prendre le chemin de la resilience.
texte et mise en scène Gregoire Cuvier / assistante a la mise en
scène Jehanne Flavenot / scenographie Gregoire Faucheux / assistante
scenographie Caroline Forveille / costumes Camille Penager / coiffure
et maquillage Catherine Saint-Sever / creation lumière Nicolas Roger
/ regisseur Philippe Andre / avec Christine Braconnier, Jean-Marc
Charrier, Christophe Chene, Olivier Cherki, Audrey Louis, Yvon Martin
et Stephane Temkine
une production du Theâtre de chair / coproduction Ferme du Mousseau,
Theâtre du Vesinet, Theâtre de l’Institut Marcel Rivière / avec
l’aide a la production d’ARCADI, l’aide a la creation du Conseil
General des Yvelines, le soutien de la Communaute d’Agglomeration de
Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines, du SEL a Sèvres, du Prisme a Elancourt,
de l’ARCAL, des Platraus solidaires d’ARCADI, du Memorial de la Shoah
et des Nouvelles d’Armenie Magazine spectacle cree en collaboration
avec le Theâtre 13 (Paris)
Ossyane est une adaptation libre du roman d’Amin Maalouf “Les echelles
du Levant” © editions Bernard Grasset
Ossyane
de Gregoire Cuvier
reprise au Theâtre 13 (Paris)
INTERVIEW OF PRESIDENT SERZH SARGSYAN TO “MOSKOVSKIE NOVOSTI”
Office of the President of the Republic
May 17 2011
Armenia
Territorial integrity does not mean inviolability of borders
On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the disintegration of
the USSR, President Serzh Sargsyan gave an interview to the Russian
“Moskovskie Novosti” (Moscow News) paper.
Mr. President, Vladimir Putin has once said that the breakdown of
the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical disaster of the 20th
century. For you, is it a disaster, a tragedy, or a victory?
Serzh Sargsyan: I agree that for many people the collapse of the
Soviet Union became a tragedy, because their regular life rhythm was
disrupted, perceived prosperity was gone, and they were compelled to
drastically change their lives. Enormous efforts had been made to
insure security of the people. The already throbbing conflicts and
problems, at the time of the breakup unfolded into military conflicts,
or to be precise – into wars. On the other hand, however, many nations
had been dreaming of independence. After attaining independence,
our people were able to turn the centuries-long cherished dream
into reality.
Independent Armenia is only twenty years old. From the viewpoint of
the entire history of the Armenian nation, it’s a drop in the ocean.
Armenia had lost her independence many centuries ago, and the first
independent republic was short-lived – only two and a half years,
just a split second in history. Certainly, the Soviet Armenia was
a very important chapter in the history of the Armenian people, a
period of formation and systematization of the institutional memory
of the people. And it helped us to hold out.
So, the base, which had been created during the soviet times, allowed
to hold out in the future, when the USSR disintegrated?
Serzh Sargsyan: Yes, the mentioned base was the economy, demographics,
culture and science and formation of the institutional memory of
the people.
In the end of the day, for Armenia and the Armenian people was the
soviet period dominated by good or bad?
Serzh Sargsyan: The Armenians, as all the others, went through
all hardships which existed in the Soviet Union. However, overall
I believe that there were more good occurrences than bad. Armenia
was developing, and living standards and conditions, let’s say, in
Armenia of 1988 are incomparable with the pre-Soviet situation. I
think that actually Armenia was developing rapidly.
Are those, who claim that Armenia in Soviet times was a privileged
entity, right?
Serzh Sargsyan: Really? I don’t think Armenia had privileges. The
Armenian people are hardworking and aim-oriented enough. To be honest,
I never heard such phraseology.
You’ve mentioned a number of positive things which Armenia got during
Soviet times. However, Armenia became one of the places where the
breakup of the USSR started on, why?
Serzh Sargsyan: There are two reasons: Although Armenia was developing
rapidly, nevertheless, the national problem was in existence. We were
living in a huge country and in foreign policy our interests had not
been always taken into consideration. For instance, in the USSR-Turkey
bilateral relations. The Armenian are spread all over the world,
mostly because our people had been subjected to genocide. In western
societies they were speaking about it freely. You see, we knew about
it, and it certainly had an impact on the situation. Official policy
was regarded in Armenia extremely negatively.
Second reason, at the dawn of the soviet times, the Caucasian Bureau
of the Communist Party had adopted a decision to detach historical
Armenian regions Nagorno Karabakh and Nakhijevan and hand them over
to Azerbaijan. Never, especially in case of Nagorno Karabakh, had
we agreed with such a decision. In Nagorno Karabakh that unlawful
decision had always been protested. In Gorbachev era, with perestroika,
the protest had become more material. When people saw that the just
decision was still unattainable, they started to protect vigorously.
When did you personally realize that the Soviet Union was doomed?
Serzh Sargsyan: It’s hard to recall particularly when, but I was
actively involved in Karabakh movement since 1988. At the time,
being a Communist Party functionary, I knew that the movement would
go on ceaselessly, I knew that either we reach the ultimate goal,
or Karabakh would be cleansed of Armenians, as it had happened
with Nakhijevan. I resigned from the USSR Communist Party. I knew,
of course, that becoming independent would not be a smooth, lossless
process. I also knew the region we lived in very well. We were ready
for those difficulties.
Do you remember the day when you realized “that’s it, this is the
end”? Until then there was some hope for holding the union together,
for some kind of a normal solution within one country; but later it
became obvious that that was the end, separation was inevitable and
no matter what, we would take the road toward independence.
Serzh Sargsyan: If I am not mistaken, it was sometime between 1990
and 1991 when I learned that the interior troops were leaving the
territory of Nagorno Karabakh. On the eve of the troops’ withdrawal,
we had already realized that we would stand face to face with our
problem and that there would be boisterous events.
And it happened, everything started with Karabakh, the breakup of the
Soviet Union had started at that particular time. What would be Your
perception of the perfect solution now?
Serzh Sargsyan: The problem can be decided only based on mutual
concessions. All these years, we have been looking for compromise. But
here’s the bottom line – the future of the people of Nagorno Karabakh
will be decided by the people of Nagorno Karabakh, they must have
every opportunity to live in security on their historical land. As
you know, the OSCE Minsk Group has been dealing with this problem,
the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev is making
great personal efforts, and we are very grateful for that. It’s been
the Minsk Group that proposed a document which is provisionally called
the Madrid principles. It implies the resolution of the problem based
on three principles: non-use of force or threat to use force, principle
of territorial integrity and right of people to self-determination.
Overall, the document provides an opportunity to continue negotiations
and to proceed with the drafting of a comprehensive peace agreement.
We know precisely what these three principles mean. After protracted
reckoning, the Azeris also said yes, but then for no obvious reason
started to interpret these principles differently, in their own way.
Until now, at the every level the Azeri leadership has been constantly
threatening with the resumption of military actions. It’s a violation
of the first principle. The principle of territorial integrity is
explicit for us and for them, even though it looks like they have
turned it into an absolute dogma, outside the realm of international
law, while the right for self-determination is perceived by them
as self-determination in the framework of Azerbaijan’s territorial
integrity. Such self-determination does not exist; it’s an incomplete,
primitive self-determination. And as long as Azerbaijan does not
comprehend the meaning of that particular principle, it will be
very difficult to get solution to the problem. Karabakh defended its
independence in a bloody and cruel war, in the most gruesome conditions
and it would be naïve to assume that the people of Karabakh will give
up everything they’ve achieved.
But if two sides comprehend the principle of territorial integrity
differently and draw borders on the map differently, it’s hard to
believe that progress is possible.
Serzh Sargsyan: I believe, we do comprehend it differently. But these
are principles the world is guided by. These principles – territorial
integrity and self-determination of people – allowed Armenia and
Azerbaijan to become independent states. Why is it acceptable in one
case, but misinterpreted in the other? It is illogical. Territorial
integrity does not mean inviolability of borders, otherwise there
would be no new states, while in the last 20-30 years a dozen of new
states has appeared on the world map.
Do you think recent formation of the two new states in the South
Caucasus will have an impact on the resolution of the NK conflict?
Serzh Sargsyan: The NK problem is different from any other similar
problem. In general, all these conflicts are unique, each of them has
its own specific causes, consequences, and dynamics. As a precedent,
yes, creation of new states does have a positive impact on the world’s
perception regarding the right of the NK people. And it’s not about
our recognition of the state sovereignty of Kosovo, Southern Sudan,
Abkhazia or South Ossetia; it’s about the fact that the international
community in different combinations accepts that in this or that
particular case separation is a legal form for the realization of
the right for self-determination.
Do You believe there is a real threat for the resumption of military
actions?
Serzh Sargsyan: I think, there is a possibility, because I cannot
understand why Azerbaijan is dragging its feet on negotiations.
Probably, there are some schemes related to the accumulation of more
power and resources to try at the opportune moment to instigate a new
reckless military provocation. It’s a flawed approach, the situation
may unfold in two ways: first, all-out war and as a result, the
occupation of Nagorno Karabakh, which is possible only if the people
of NK are totally eliminated, and the second, Azerbaijan’s defeat
and loss of additional territories. In that case Azerbaijan will be
complaining again about the loss of five, six or more regions. Then
what? Another cease-fire, another agreement, new violations of the
cease-fire, another war…These scenarios are without prospect.
STATE OF GRACE: AN INTERVIEW WITH WIM WENDERS
Author: Steven Pill
British Journal of Photography
May 17 2011
Wim Wenders started taking photographs aged seven and has pursued his
love of stills ever since as well as directing films. Photography is
a state of mind, he tells Steven Pill.
In one of the opening sequences of the 1974 film, Alice In The
Cities, journalist Philip Winter sits under a boardwalk, laying out
his Polaroids on the sand. Commissioned by his publisher to write
about America, Winter has instead traversed the country photographing
anything and everything with a prototype SX70. Not satisfied with the
results, he shakes his head. “They never really show what it was you
saw,” he says.
The film was co-written and directed by Wim Wenders, the German film
director, playwright, author, photographer and producer behind Paris,
Texas (1984) and Wings of Desire (1987). “Philip Winter was my alter
ego,” he says. “He takes pictures because he doesn’t know how to
write about America. And I thought he was quite representative of
the young man I was at the time.”
After a series of student films and rather dry shorts, Alice In
The Cities was a charming and more playful turn for Wenders. And it
is perhaps no coincidence that the breakthrough came after Wenders
explored a subject that was close to his heart – photography.
Thirty-five years later, he returned to the subject of photography
for his last feature, 2009’s Palermo Shooting. Shot in his hometown
of Dusseldorf, the film stars former punk singer Campino as Finn,
a fashion photographer who undertakes large, staged shoots and barks
orders at a coterie of assistants. The contrast in personality with
Winter couldn’t be starker but Finn doesn’t represent a change in
the director’s personal outlook. He’s the antithesis of the director,
who’s now a celebrated photographer in his own right, and his contrary
approach serves as a comment on photography in the digital age.
“Finn is much less me than Philip Winter because Finn is a photographer
[who is] content with photography,” says Wenders. “And as a contented
photographer, he does use digital means to compose his pictures. You
see him at work sometimes and you see that he’s replacing skies and
creating new worlds through different photographs.
The governing notion of photography today is that you produce an image.
“I’m not nostalgic,” adds Wenders firmly. “I just state that it’s
a different approach, and it is much more of a painterly approach,
to photography, and what I cherish about photography has got lost.”
Sure shot
Born Ernst Wilhelm Wenders in 1945, the young Wim Wenders started
taking photographs at the age of seven, shooting animals in the zoo
with a cheap, plastic camera. Photography came naturally to him but he
also learned about image making from his father, who had been given an
early Leica in the 1930s when he graduated from medical school. “That
started a tradition of photography in the family,” says Wenders. “My
father had a darkroom and even as a soldier in the war, he spent his
nights in bathrooms, developing films and enlarging them himself. I
was impressed because they looked like early Ansel Adams. They were
nice prints and then he gave it up altogether and I sensed the regret.
Maybe that’s what made me like it.”
Tribute to Audrey, 2005. Image © Wim Wenders.
Despite his early interest in photography, Wenders opted to study
philosophy and medicine in Germany before moving to Paris as an
apprentice engraver to the artist Johnny Friedlander. The experience
was brief but it proved hugely influential. “I think that the history
of painting really determined my entire sensibility, for photography
as well as filmmaking,” he says. “Vermeer was my biggest hero, then
later on it was definitely Hopper. Max Beckmann too. I think they
all had a very, very distinct sense of place and an enormous feeling
for composition, and my taste for composition comes from paintings,
definitely.”
That strong aesthetic sensibility helped Wenders develop a distinct
style for each of his early films. Working closely with his director
of photography before the shoot, he would settle on a particular
influence that would define the look of each movie. For Kings of
the Road, a film about two melancholic young men travelling across
Germany, he and director of photography Robby Muller turned to an icon
of Depression-era photography. “That film was our Walker Evans look,
and we really went deep into his photography to give the film that
feeling,” says Wenders.
“I remember we did American Friend and had the walls of our room
full of Edward Hopper paintings. But eventually I felt it was not a
great approach any more. I felt it was better to not impose a look
and have it in mind before I started but let the story itself be open
to finding it. It took a while before I had the courage to do that,
especially when I was a young filmmaker. I figured I needed to know
the look before I started and that can be a mistake.”
Even so, Wenders continues to exert a certain amount of control over
the aesthetic of his films. Unusually for a director, he prefers to
frame every shot himself, selecting which lens to use and where to
position the camera, just as he would when taking photographs. “Most
directors of photography I work with are happy this way because they
can concentrate on lighting and operating, and they usually respect
you if you know exactly what shot you want,” he says. “Very often,
the director of photography is the one who chooses the frame and it’s
quite a responsibility if the director doesn’t really give them an
idea of what shot he wants.”
In recent years, professional photographers have started to make
impressive directorial debuts, from Anton Corbijn’s Control to Tom
Ford’s A Single Man. Wenders has been impressed by what he calls these
“cross-over adventurers”, although he believes the transition from
high-end commercial or editorial photography to film directing is
simpler, thanks to the presence of a large crew in both disciplines.
He prefers to work much more simply, often visiting new cities alone
or with his wife, Donata. She’s a published portrait photographer in
her own right, and the couple work separately during their days away,
only commenting on each other’s images back at home in Berlin several
weeks later.
“Taking pictures is a very solitary thing, at least for me,” says
Wenders. “That’s why I wouldn’t even want to have an assistant with
me, because the very presence of somebody else would make that more
important than my relation to the place. And to immerse in a place is
strictly only possible when you are on your own. You can fake it and
you can pretend to want to listen to a place but as soon as there is
someone else there, even if it is just a bystander looking at what you
are doing, it is over. You are no longer in the privileged position
of being a listener.”
Still images
Wenders’ forthcoming exhibition at London’s Haunch of Venison, Places,
Strange and Quiet, collects together 31 photographs taken in cities
across the globe, mostly in the past five years. The earliest image
in the collection dates back to 1983, though, a year he regards as
a turning point in his attitude towards the medium. Throughout the
previous decade, he had been criss-crossing the US, photographing the
local landscape while on the search for film locations. During the
summer of 1983, after shooting had finished on the Palme d’Or-winning
Paris, Texas, he decided to make his first print. “That was the moment
that I thought photography had something to offer in itself,” he says.
“I’d been taking pictures for decades without printing anything;
I was happy with my contact sheets and it just never crossed my mind.
Printing was taking it seriously. Ever since that innocence has gone,
I’ve become a photographer: I take pictures so that I can print them.”
That first professional print led to Written In The West, a book and
touring exhibition that began in 1986 at the Pompidou Centre in Paris.
Several collections followed, often drawn from location scouting
for films such as Buena Vista Social Club and The Million Dollar
Hotel. In the early 1990s, Wenders became increasingly fascinated
with sequential photography and the potential for storytelling through
consecutive stills. His book, Once, contained some of his most personal
photographs to date, accompanied by short, poetic captions and showing
two or more shots of the same filming locations, random encounters
and famous friends.
Today, he is dismissive of the concept explored in the book. “In
photography, the absence of the montage is the most beautiful gift,”
he says. “I know in Once, I was quite preoccupied with the idea and,
every now and then, it is fascinating to see two pictures together.
But if you show two pictures in succession, you start to comment,
and the beauty of a single photograph is that it is enough in itself.”
With that in mind, the 65-year old focused his recent efforts on
increasing the size of his prints, to provide viewers with a more
immersive experience. And after more than 30 years of exploring
America through photography and film, the locations have changed too,
with recent visits taking in Japan, Tel Aviv and Armenia. “Don’t Come
Knocking felt like a goodbye to the West and Land of Plenty even more
so,” he says. “But, that’s only natural if you are so obsessed with
something that you have eventually exhausted it. Other people find
new things about America but I had felt that I had said what I had
to say and there was really nothing to add.”
After spending so much time in the US, he has found it a relief to
visit countries that he had no preconceptions of. Part of the joy of
photography for Wenders is the time spent exploring and acclimatising
to new surroundings, and it took time for him to comprehend and
appreciate Armenia in particular. Landlocked and sandwiched between
Turkey and Azerbaijan, he believes that the small eastern European
republic has maintained its independence thanks to having its own
language and alphabet. “And that’s a strange and beautiful reason for
a country to survive. It has no economic power whatsoever; they don’t
have any oil, nothing. They’ve got apricots. That’s the only export.
There are exiled Armenians all over the world who have sustained
their country and I really got to like these people.”
Documentary aim
Wenders thrives on unfamiliar situations and, while his images
are often atmospheric and highly saturated thanks to his use of
Kodak 160VC film, there is still a strong documentary aspect to his
subjects. “The idea of preservation was always important for me,”
he says. “Even in the movies we use many locations that I went out of
my way to find because I realised they were not going to continue to
exist much longer. That’s a valid reason for photography or for film,
to show something that will vanish, because by taking the picture it
is not vanishing. Something remains, amazingly enough.”
Open Air Screen, Palermo, 2007. Image © Wim Wenders.
Whether in a theme park in Tokyo, a Moscow backyard or a beachfront
in Tel Aviv, Wenders has similar interests. His photographs reveal
a fascination with architectural imperfections, unusual settings
and side-lit street scenes viewed flat. As one might expect from an
experienced feature filmmaker, the mood shifts throughout – abstract
yet familiar, inquisitive yet detached. If figures do appear in
his photographs, they very rarely make contact with the viewer,
often standing with their back to the lens. It is as if Wenders is
seeking solace in these lonely locations, freed from the constraint
of a large film crew.
Achieving this still and contemplative atmosphere takes patience.
Sitting in the buyer’s room of his gallery, surrounded by various
expensive, unsold works of art, Wenders gestures towards one of his
own large-scale panoramas on the far wall. “You have to search a
little bit until you have the frame,” he says. “I very often stand
there for a while, waiting for the light to change and, in this case,
waiting for these little girls to cross. If you stand there, nobody
watches you. If you rush to get the picture, they will look at you but
if you are already standing there, you become part of the landscape.”
Impressively, given the depth in some of his landscape shots, Wenders
works without a tripod to keep things flexible and portable. Despite
making a commercial for the digital Leica M8, he prefers to work
with a 35mm version and on his dedicated photography trips he packs a
medium format Plaubel Makina and a Fuji 617 panoramic camera, which
uses three lenses to produce 6O17 negatives.
“The beauty of the negative is that you still see the failed pictures,
the ones out of focus,” he says. “You can still see how I learnt
to take pictures by looking at my negatives. I like the mystery of
negatives too. If you have a digital camera, no matter how determined
you are, you will check your images and, in a strange way, it breaks
the spell because already you treat it as something finished. There is
something wrong in that. I like the fact that [with negatives] you are
exposing yourself to a place and you don’t know whether you have it.”
Wenders cannot afford to leave things to chance on a multimillion
pound film shoot, so his films are shot entirely in digital. But
what the medium lacks in mystery, it makes up for in scope for
experimentation. Commissioned to produce a film for the 12th Venice
Architecture Biennale, he constructed a prototype 3D filming rig
comprising of two Nikon 5D cameras and produced a 20-minute film
installation about the Rolex Learning Center in Switzerland.
“3D was an adventure in itself, even more remote from photography
than a regular film,” he says. “3D is certainly interesting for
documentaries because you can take people really into the space where
other people live and work and exist, you can really take them there
in a different way. Most of the stuff I’ve seen in the last couple
of years uses 3D as an attraction or a carnival ride, but it is not
necessarily a fantastic tool for telling stories.”
Mental state
Wenders’ forthcoming feature, Pina, was also shot in 3D, but he didn’t
take a single photograph during the shoot. To compensate he intends
to make a photography trip to Africa soon, a continent he briefly
explored when he made a short documentary in Congo for Medicos Sans
Frontières five years ago.
As he gets older, he has found that he can no longer give both
photography and filmmaking his full attention on a single trip,
and he can’t bring himself to pack two cameras as he feels “like two
different people would have to make that journey”.
As if embarrassed by the confession, he leans forward to whisper his
explanation, confiding: “I’ve realised that the photography I like can
only be done purely and it needs a very different approach. Of course,
I can take pictures with my iPhone theoretically, and I do every now
and then, but I’m not a photographer with it – I’m an everyday man.
Photography is a state of mind.” BJP
Haunch of Venison is showing an exhibition of photographs by Wim
Wenders, Places, Strange and Quiet, from 15 April to 21 May. Wenders’
new â~@¨documentary, Pina, will be released in the UK on 22 April.
ARMENIAN PEOPLE ‘NOT READY’ TO COMPROMISE
news.az
May 17 2011
Azerbaijan
Armenian people are not ready for compromises, former co-chair of the
OSCE Minsk Group Kerry Kovano. According to Turkish mass media, while
speaking at a conference at the Uludag university of Turkish Bursa
on “Security in the South Caucasus: Azerbaijani-Turkish relations”,
the former co-chair of the Minsk Group said this was the reason of
failure of his mediation efforts.
As for Turkey’s role in settling problems in the South Caucasus,
he said this country has a great advantage in this issue:
“By using its relations with Azerbaijan, Turkey will be able to play
an important role in solving Caucasus problems. We have witnessed
that the active role of Turkey and Azerbaijan made such fantastic
projects as Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan and Baku-Tbilisi-Kars a reality. For
this reason I believe in peace in the region. Merely, Turkey should
realize the slogan of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk: “Peace at home means
peace in the world” and in the Caucasus.
The military budget of Azerbaijan hits $3.5bn a year and this figure
overtops the whole state budget of Armenia and such huge funds could
be used for peaceful goals in the region”.
SMOKING BANNED PUBLIC TRANSPORT IN YEREVAN
Tert.am
17.05.11
Yerevan Municipality has banned smoking in public transport and public
food catering facilities.
Breach of the new decision will entail administrative responsibility,
the Municipality said on its website.
Yerevan Mayor Karen Karapetyan also proposed the chief or Armenia~Rs
Traffic Police to strengthen surveillance measures to hold accountable
those who will smoke in public and private transport.
Yerevantrans, LLC, in turn has been instructed to join the control
effort in public transport. Those drivers of public transport who
breach the ban will be punished according to their contracts.
The Yerevan Municipality also proposed the public food catering
facilities to allocate separate areas for smoking.
SERZH SARGSYAN: ARMENIA NEVER POLITICIZED REFUGEES’ PROBLEM
PanARMENIAN.Net
May 17, 2011 – 17:17 AMT
On May 17, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan received UN High
Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres, who arrived in Armenia
to participate in an international conference of donor organizations.
Mr. Sargsyan praised the role of the UN Refugee Agency and personally
Guterres in resolution of refugees’ problems in Armenia, expressing
gratitude for the programs implemented in the country. He noted that
Armenia is ready to continue the efforts aimed at solving refugees’
problems and protecting their basic rights through active cooperation
with UNHCR.
The Armenian leader stressed that Armenia has pursued the policy of
refugees’ integration into society since the very first days of their
acceptance and has never politicized the problem of refugees.
According to Sargsyan, Armenia will again voice its obligations aimed
at solution of problems of the most vulnerable groups of refugees and
improvement of the legislation in the field as part of a ministerial
meeting in Geneva due December 2011.
Guterres praised the works carried out in Armenia, noting that
refugees are provided with the opportunity to obtain Armenian
citizenship. Besides, according to him, conditions are created for
refugees’ integration into society, measures are taken to secure
refugees’ rights, the RA presidential press service reported.
RAUF MYRKADYROV: IN CASE AZERBAIJAN STARTS WAR, IT WILL PROBABLY RECEIVE A BLOW TO HEAD BY RUSSIA
ARMENPRESS
MAY 17, 2011
YEREVAN
“In case Azerbaijan starts war, it will probably receive a blow to
head by Russia”, political analyst of Azerbaijani “Zerkalo” paper Rauf
Myrkadyrov said today. He is here to participate in “Caucasus 2010”
international conference.
According to him, the new war in Nagorno Karabakh will destroy the
whole system of relations in the South Caucasus. “The regional
countries gradually get rid of the fear existing since the 2008
after the Russian-Georgian five-day long war and in case of military
activities it will not be possible to localize the conflict”, he said.
KRIKOR SEVAG MEKHITARIAN WINS SAO PAULO-HOSTED BLITZ CHESS TOURNAMENT
PanARMENIAN.Net
May 17, 2011 – 17:26 AMT
Armenian grandmaster Krikor Sevag Mekhitarian won Sao Paulo-hosted
blitz chess tournament with top Brazilian chess players participating.
At the knockout system tournament, Sevag beat FM Luiz Abdalla 2:1;
further, he gained a 2:0 victory over GM Felipe El Debs, beating GM
Gilberto Milos 2:1 in the finals, armchess.am reported.
BAKO SAHAKYAN: REVIVAL OF COUNTRYSIDE IMPOSSIBLE WITHOUT SOLUTION OF YOUTH’S ISSUES
PanARMENIAN.Net
May 17, 2011 – 17:12 AMT
On May 17, Artsakh Republic President Bako Sahakyan visited the village
of Avetaranots in the Askeran region where he met the villagers and
discussed the course of projects carried out.
Special attention was paid to the issues of youth.
The NKR President noted that the revival of the countryside was
impossible without effective solution of the problems the youth faced.
Otherwise migration from the countryside to the cities will be
irreversible, which will have a negative impact on the development
of the Artsakh villages.
The President gave specific instructions to carry out the planned
projects on a proper level, Central Information Department at Artsakh
President’s Office reported.