Author: George Mamian

Rio Ferdinand is struggling to understand why Henrikh Mkhitaryan is not featuring for Manchester United, joking: “I would actually like to see him play football!”

The Armenian has struggled for game time at Old Trafford since his summer move from Borussia Dortmund and the former England international has questioned why he isn’t in the team, reports.

Mkhitaryan was one of Jose Mourinho’s big summer signings, arriving from Borussia Dortmund, but hasn’t made a single start since the derby defeat to Manchester City on September 10.

Mourinho has claimed that the Armenian is fully fit and operating at “100 per cent” in training but he continues to be left out, much to the bemusement of former defender Ferdinand.

He told the London Evening Standard: “I don’t know what’s happened to Mkhitaryan. Does anyone know where he is?

“By all accounts he is fit and training well but you don’t see him in a Manchester United shirt.

“They paid Borussia Dortmund £26 million to get him in the summer and for that money, I would actually like to see him play football!”

 

Iraqi forces fighting so-called Islamic State (IS) in Mosul have broken through the front line without suffering any losses, a spokesman says.

Sabah al-Numan told the that many IS fighters had been killed.

Government forces entered the city’s outskirts for the first time on Tuesday since the city was seized in June 2014.

Wednesday is the 17th day of the anti-IS operation, which involves 50,000 personnel including Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Sunni Arab tribesmen.

Elite troops seized control of the state TV building in Kukjali on Tuesday hours after launching an assault on the eastern district and later breached the outskirts of the Karama district.

The Azerbaijani side violated the ceasefire 100 times at the line of contact with the Karabakh forces over the weekend, the NKR Defense Ministry reported.

The rival used firearms of different calibers as it fired over 2,300 shots in the direction of the Armenian positions.

A group of servicemen were spotted clearing mines at a neutral zone, in the northern direction of the line of contact.

The rival was thrown back as a result of response actions taken by the NKR Defense Army.

The front troops of the NKR Defense Army keep full control of the situation at the line of contact and confidently continue with their military duty.

Pobeda Airline will start regular flights from Gyumri’s Shirak Airport to Moscow’s Vnukovo from the end of November.

The flights will be operated thrice a week.

The ticket prices will start from 10 thousand AMD.

UNESCO – United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization – has recognized Dilijan, Armenia among its Global Network of Learning Cities (GNLC).  Dilijan joins a dynamic network of cities worldwide that support and accelerate the practice of lifelong learning in the world’s communities, while promoting policy dialogue and peer learning among member cities through forged links and fostered partnerships that promote the progress of the learning cities.

“It is a great honor for the all Dilijan residents to receive such a coveted recognition from UNESCO as Dilijan continues to offer pioneering educational programs for preparing our citizens for the 21^st century learning,” said Dilijan Community Center Program Director, Rubina Ter-Martirosyan who was instrumental in Dilijan’s selection as a GNLC.

“Dilijan has become the designated site for such local and international learning centers as UWC Dilijan College, Central Bank of Armenia’s Training and Research Center, American University of Armenia, Tumo Center for Creative Technologies, the Dilijan Community Center as well as many artistic venues which culminated in the launch of the first Dilijan Arts Observatory this year,” Dilijan Mayor, Armen Santrosyan added.

Arne Carlsen, Director, UNESCO Institute for Lifelong Learning, commended Dilijan’s “vision, planning and implementation of the learning city concept” in a letter of recognition and expressed eagerness to learn about Dilijan’s future developments.

Veronika Zonabend, co-founder of UWC Dilijan and the Dilijan Development Foundation which supports Dilijan Community Center and other regional projects stated: “The goal of our foundation is to return to Dilijan its fame and further develop it into an educational, cultural and recreational regional hub. And this international recognition is an important step towards this goal.”

Inclusion in the Network will help Dilijan achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education while promoting lifelong learning opportunities for all its citizens.  Additionally, Dilijan will be listed amongst other world cities recognized as a UNESCO GNLC.

Gagik Adibekyan, co-founder of the Dilijan Development Foundation and founding-partner of UWC Dilijan College stated, “We live in a complex, fast changing world, in which the competitiveness and economic growth of the country depend heavily on the quality of education.  I am certain that Dilijan’s entry into the Global Network of Learning Cities will contribute to solving the important task of turning Dilijan into the educational hub of Armenia.”

The regular 11^th sitting of the Armenian-Russian Intergovernmental Commission on Military-Technical Cooperation is under way in Rostov-on-Don, Russia.

The Armenian delegation is headed by Movses Hakobyan, Head of the Logistics Department of the Ministry of Defense.

The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) is joining this week with In Defense of Christians (IDC) and a broad array of faith-based and human rights coalition partners in seeking solutions to the challenges facing Christian communities in the Middle East and attaining justice for the genocide committed against Armenians, Greeks and Assyrians from 1915-1923.

The third annual IDC National Advocacy Convention, titled “Beyond Genocide: Preserving Christianity in the Middle East,” is cosponsored by the ANCA, Philos Project, and Institute for Global Engagement and supported by many other DC-based and grassroots organizations.

“Recognizing that the profound challenges facing Christians in the Middle East require strong coalitions and a coordinated American response, the ANCA is pleased, once again, to team up with In Defense of Christians to help realign U.S. foreign policy with the American people’s commitment to human rights and religious liberty,” said ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian.

Armenian Church and ANCA leaders will be offering insights throughout the three-day program starting on Wednesday, September 7th, with remarks by Hamparian at the opening press conference, which will also feature insights by Dr. Katrina Lantos Swett, Chair of the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF); Robert Nicholson, Executive Director of the Philos Project; Alexis Moukarzel, former Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of the Holy Spirit in Kaslik, Lebanon; Andrew Doran, journalist and expert on religious persecution in the Middle East; and IDC Executive Director Kirsten Evans.

Wednesday evening, His Eminence Archbishop Oshagan Choloyan, Prelate of the Prelacy of the Armenian Apostolic Church of the Eastern U.S. will participate in an ecumenical prayer service for Christians in the Middle East at the historic Holy Rosary Catholic Church in Washington, DC.

Thursday’s day of Capitol Hill advocacy will be kicked off with a policy briefing by Raffi Karakashian, ANCA Government Affairs Director; Juliana Taimoorazy, founder and president of the Iraqi Christian Relief Council; and Kristina Olney, IDC Director of Government Relations and Outreach – followed by Congressional office canvassing by conference participants.

In the afternoon, ANCA National Board Member Aida Dimejian will be offering remarks alongside a host of Senate and House members and organization leaders at the Congressional Visitor Center Auditorium.

On Friday, the ANCA Eastern Region’s Armen Sahakyan will be offering insights at a panel titled “Genocide and Persecution: Past and Present” alongside Dr. Katrina Lantos Swett; Andrew Walther, vice president for communications and strategic planning for the Knights of Columbus; and the IDC’s Kirsten Evans.

The complete schedule and listing of all speakers is available at:

Among the key policy issues advocated by the IDC conference participants is the Armenian Genocide Truth + Justice Resolution (H.Res.154) – which is now pending before Congress – calls on the President of the United States to work toward equitable, constructive, stable, and durable Armenian-Turkish relations based upon the Republic of Turkey’s full acknowledgment of the facts and ongoing consequences of the Armenian Genocide, and a fair, just, and comprehensive international resolution of this crime against humanity. The ANCA is strongly in support of congressional passage of H.Res.154.

The ANCA has worked closely with IDC and a coalition of over 100 organizations, including the Knights of Columbus, the International Religious Freedom Roundtable and the Prelacy of the Armenian Apostolic Church in a grassroots campaign to have Congress and the Obama Administration declare the slaughter that Christians and other minorities in the Middle East are facing a modern-day genocide.

Earlier this year, on March 15th, with a vote of 393 to 0, the U.S. House of Representatives unanimously condemned as genocide the ongoing ISIL/Da’esh crimes against Christians – including Armenians and Assyrians – as well as Yezidis and other religious minorities in the Middle East by adopting H.Con.Res.75, spearheaded by Representatives Anna Eshoo (D-CA) and Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE).  Two days later, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry clearly and unequivocally characterized the ongoing ISIL / Da’esh attacks and killings of the Christians, Yezidis, and Shiite Muslims in the Middle East as genocide, with specific mention of the destruction of Armenian churches as part of the cultural destruction of these historic communities.  The Senate adopted a similar resolution (S.Res.340) on July 7th.

His Holiness Aram I, Catholicos of the Great House of Cilicia, joined with Christian leaders from throughout the Middle East at the inaugural IDC conference in 2014, offering a powerful call for unity in the face of the existential threat against historic Middle Eastern Christian communities.

Greco-Roman wrestler Arthur Aleksanyan won Armenia’s first gold medal at Rio Olympics.

Aleksanyan beat Cuba’s Yasmany Daniel Lugo Cabrera in the men’s Greco-Roman 98 kg final.

Arrmenia had not claimed Olympic gold since 1996.

Armenia has condemned the attack in Nice.

“We condemn the Nice lorry attack. We express our condolences to the relatives of the victims,” the Armenian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The Ministry is currently checking whether there are Armenians among the victim of the attack. There is no confirmed data so far.

 

 

 

 

The Unicum Engineering Company will start producing night vision and thermal imaging cameras in Armenia.

The production will be organized on the territory of the Alliance Free Trade Zone, Minister of Economy Artsvik Minasyan said at the government sitting today.

The company is expected to produce up to 1,000 devises in the first year and increase the number to 5,500 in the future.

“The volume of production is expected to reach $5 mln by 2017 and exceed $12 mln in five years,” the Minister said.

The production will be mostly exported to Russia, he informed.

About $31 mln will be invested within the framework of the program (5 years), 10 new jobs will be created in the first year with an average salary of 150 AMD. The number of jobs is expected to reach 35 with 350 AMD average salary.