10:41,
YEREVAN, APRIL 21, ARMENPRESS. The death toll in the Philippines from the landslides and flooding caused by tropical storm Megi that hit on April 10 rose to 224, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) said, adding that 147 more are missing.
221 deaths were recorded in the central Philippines and three in the southern Philippines.
Armenia offers Turkey to open border for diplomatic passport holders as first step, but Ankara is delaying
09:00,
YEREVAN, APRIL 15, ARMENPRESS. The next meeting of the special representatives of Armenia and Turkey for normalization could take place in Vienna, the Armenian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Vahan Hunanyan said in response to a query from ARMENPRESS.
Hunanyan also commented on the Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu’s remarks that the meetings ought to take place either in Armenia or Turkey, and the need for “courageous” steps.
The Foreign Ministry spokesperson said that Armenia offered Turkey to open the land border for diplomatic passport holders; however Turkey is delaying to do so.
ARMENPRESS: Where and when is the next meeting of the Special Representatives of Armenia and Turkey planned?
Hunanyan: There is a preliminary understanding between the sides that the next meeting could take place in Vienna. The public will be properly informed as soon as the timeframes and venue of the meeting get final confirmation.
ARMENPRESS: The Turkish Foreign Minister said in an interview that they would want the meeting to take place either in Armenia or Turkey. What is Armenia’s position in this regard?
Hunanyan: During the previous attempts of normalization meetings took place in Armenia and Turkey on the levels of both negotiators and even presidents, but, as you know, they didn’t lead to results. I mean, what matters is the political will to reach normalization and readiness to take clear, substantive steps. We are displaying both and we expect the same from Turkey. If there is the will, the location of the meetings will become simply a technical matter.
Moreover, the proposal to hold the meetings of the special representatives in Armenia and Turkey shows that in Turkey’s understanding the process has an entirely bilateral nature. In this case, it would have been reasonable not to hear the virtually weekly statements from Turkey’s representatives that they are advancing the process in coordination with Azerbaijan.
ARMENPRESS: Speaking about the normalization of the Armenia-Turkey relations Minister Cavusoglu mentioned the need for "courageous" steps. How would you comment this?
Hunanyan: The Armenian side fully concurs with the need for making courageous steps. We have numerously showed readiness to move forward, including with the participation of our Foreign Minister in the Antalya Diplomacy Forum and the lifting of the economic embargo. The restoration of flights between Armenia and Turkey was also an important bilateral step.
We are convinced that the only path for moving forward implies continuous, clear steps. For example, we offered the Turkish side, for the first phase, to open the land border for persons holding diplomatic passports, however the Turkish side is delaying. We believe that this would be a small but substantive, most importantly logical step. We are hopeful that it will be possible to achieve results in this issue.
PanARMENIAN.Net - French Ambassador to Armenia Anne Louyot has described the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) as "disturbing".
Louyot made the remarks at a meeting with Vice President of the National Assembly Ruben Rubinyan who provided details about the situation in the Karabakh, created as a result of the invasion of the Azerbaijani armed forces.
According to Rubinyan, the policy of Azerbaijan is aimed at the eviction of Armenians from Artsakh.
Azerbaijan has broken into Nagorno-Karabakh, and the incursion has left three Armenian soldiers dead and at least 14 others injured. On March 24, Azerbaijan stormed into the zone of the responsibility of the Russian peacekeepers stationed in the area and is refusing to completely withdraw its forces from strategic heights.
Other issues related to regional security, as well as the dialogue between Armenia and Turkey were also on the table.
Turkey wants to buy F-16 fighter jets
The Biden administration believes a potential sale of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey would be in line with U.S. national security interests and would also serve NATO’s long-term unity, the State Department said in a letter to Congress that fell short of explicitly supporting the deal, Reuters reported.
Turkey made a request in October to the United States to buy 40 Lockheed Martin-made F-16 fighters and nearly 80 modernization kits for its existing warplanes. Washington has so far refrained from expressing any opinion on the sale, saying it needs to go through the standard arms sales process.
The sale of U.S. weapons to NATO member Turkey became contentious after Ankara acquired Russian-made defense missile systems, triggering U.S. sanctions as well as Turkey’s removal from the F-35 fighter jet program.
A bipartisan group of over 50 U.S. Representatives joined Congressional Armenian Caucus Co-Chair Frank Pallone (D-NJ) and Hellenic Caucus Co-Chair Gus Bilirakis (R-FL) in pressing the departments of State and Defense to block the sale of next-generation U.S. F-16 fighter jets and upgrade kits to Turkey President Erdogan’s increasingly hostile regime, the Armenian National Committee of America reported in February.
The State Department letter, first reported by Reuters, is dated March 17 and signed by the agency’s top legislative official Naz Durakoglu. She acknowledges the strained relations while at the same time describing Turkey’s support for and defense ties with Ukraine as “an important deterrent to malign influence in the region.”
While the letter does not provide any assurance or a timeline for the sale, it emphasizes that Washington’s punitive actions after Ankara’s purchase of the Russian S-400 systems represent “a significant price paid.”
“The Administration believes that there are nonetheless compelling long-term NATO alliance unity and capability interests, as well as U.S. national security, economic and commercial interests that are supported by appropriate U.S. defense trade ties with Turkey,” the letter said.
“The proposed sale will require a Congressional notification if the Department of State were to approve it,” it added.
11:04, 6 April, 2022
YEREVAN, APRIL 6, ARMENPRESS. Scientist Anna Poladyan, who embarked on her career over 3 decades ago, after having worked as a senior lab worker in the Department of Biophysics of the Faculty of Biology at Yerevan State University, is currently the Head of the Chair of Biochemistry, Microbiology and Biotechnology, having also received her doctorate degree. Anna made up her mind to become a scientist in early childhood, with her orientalist father and his academic friends as role models. Later on, Anna’s scientific supervisor played a crucial role in the formation of her interests.
Why and how did you decide to become a scientist?
My father’s influence is immeasurable behind my resolution to become a scientist. He is a scientist-diplomat, who worked in the Institute of Oriental Studies in the National Academy of Sciences of the Republic of Armenia up to 1996, Doctor of Historical Sciences. The academic atmosphere has always been in the air, it runs in the family. I’ve witnessed his research activity since early childhood, saw him write research articles night, and always looked up to him. The only difference was that I was into natural sciences, so I opted for biology as a career path. Throughout my university studies, professor Armen Trchunyan, my scientific supervisor, contributed to my budding as a scientist. He was a world-renowned scientist, who taught us not only professional skills but also how to be idea-oriented and to go for it.
How would you describe a scientist?
A scientist is a curious person, led by an urge to explore the new. The outcome of scientific activity is a creation of new knowledge. As regards biology, work is not only mental, but it also requires manual skills, thus theory and practice are completely intermingled here, which makes the work more riveting.
What motivates you to get up in the mornings?
Each of us goes to bed and gets up with plans for the next day. Apparently, I get up to accomplish my plans for the day. Broadly speaking, we need to be pleased with whatever we have once the sun rises, thank for the day and strive for more.
What is the discovery which impressed you the most?
My research interests are within the scope of bacteriology and biochemistry, and what impressed me the most is that bacteria, though unicellular organisms, live social lives. They have a plethora of mechanisms to counteract and adjust to changing environmental conditions, which might be exemplary for humans as well.
Have you got any other role models among scientists, apart from your father and the scientific supervisor you mentioned?
English scientist Peter Mitchell pioneered the chemiosmotic hypothesis on mechanisms of energy synthesis in living organisms; it took him 17 years to be awarded the Nobel Prize for this discovery. John E. Walker and Paul D. Boyer, English and American scientists, who discovered the mechanism of a biological molecular machine, an amazing nano machine. For instance, the nano machine can also function in bacterial membrane. The word machine itself implies that the mechanism operates on a stator-rotor (static and rotating) basis, typical of all machines which synthesize ATP, adenosine triphosphate (energy-carrying molecule found in the cells of all living things/ editorial).
There are also other scientists in the field whose activity I follow. One of such is Garabed Antranikian, Director of the Center for Biocatalysts at Hamburg University of Technology in Germany, as well as Russian scientist Vladimir Skulachev.
What would you tell a child wanting to become a scientist?
A child is an inborn researcher- they get to know the world by exploring and analyzing it since early childhood. At a certain point, their vein of research might be negatively affected, once we set boundaries and put limitations on them. I’d like them to stay curious, to never give up on exploring the new, to pursue solutions to their concerns. What’s more, a child needs to know they’re smart enough and that adults have been waiting for their new ideas.
Can you recall any turning point on your way to becoming a scientist?
The opportunities, especially in our field, used to be extremely limited back in the years when I entered university and then started work in the same faculty. There were the ideas needed, and the research team did their best, but as research in natural sciences is costly, financial means were not sufficient. It was in the year 2013, over 19 years ago, that I was sent to Virginia University, US, on a business trip. My first impression was an immense surprise – I had seen all that in Hollywood movies and I seemed to live in a movie. The equipment they had, the abundance of materials, student life – everything was completely different. It served as an impetus for me to view my career path differently. Four years ago, when I was working at Berlin Technical University in Germany, I didn’t experience such a huge shock as our laboratory is quite close to the German one, we’ve made a lot of progress over the last few years. Soviet science was quite advanced but the dark and cold period and the war greatly hindered the development of science in Armenia. The reason I highlight professor Trchunyan’s role is that he frequently worked in advanced scientific groups of foreign universities, and he was the one to link us to contemporary science. It is thanks to him that our studies constitute part of the world science.
Could you also elaborate on your participation in the ADVANCE grant program and how important is it for a scientist?
There are quite a lot of grants in the field, including the one by the Science Committee of the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport, RA. The format of this particular program by FAST (Foundation for Armenian Science and Technology) is a bit different as it brings together scientists from diverse fields. We don’t like cooperation much in Armenia, it’s early days. ADVANCE can be considered a stepping stone in this regard. Scientists started to cooperate within the framework of this program, which facilitates our research activity a lot. Why make an extra effort to figure out something easy for a chemist if provided with the necessary sample, while another specialist will conduct biological processing. As a result, with joint efforts and implementation of each scientist’s narrow specialization, the research project benefits. I’d like to highlight our scientific supervisor Garabed Antranikian, who is involved in advanced research in Germany, introducing innovative ideas and linking our local and foreign scientific groups. Our research project is concerned with the field of biotechnologies. We’re studying how to recycle organic waste available in Armenia and produce bacterial biomass and other useful materials.
What are practical applications as a result of this project?
Having obtained knowledge on how various biochemical processes occur in unicellular and multicellular organisms, starting from the synthesis of various substances and their control, can be applied in the creation of biotechnologies. Over time I’ve come to realize that nature has created everything, humans simply assimilate those mechanisms and apply them in their day-to-day life. Bacteria help purify wastewater and organic waste and synthesize useful ferments, substances used to get, for instance, food products or alternative energy. These days replacement of animal protein and production of alternative food are cutting-edge directions, possible to realize with the help of bacteria. Bacteria are grown on waste, then protein food products, such as milk or meat, or biofuel are generated, since food isn’t available in different parts of the world these days already, and the available resources are going to get exhausted sooner or later. Also, it is possible to get ecologically sustainable fertilizers and fertilize the soil in a biological way. Production of bioplastic, which quickly decomposes in the soil, drastically reducing pollution, is also possible through bacterial waste recycling.
How do you envision your career peak?
Every scientist with their research team works on fundamental research, which is indeed perpetual. As a culmination of this all, I’d love to see the implementation of the scientific outcome we create, so that it turns into technology or any other product which might change people’s lives for the better.
Previous interviews of the "10 questions to scientist" series are below:
Science excelled all jobs because it is perspective: Sargis Aghayan
The easiest way to change the world is to do science: Sona Hunanyan
Dr. Souzy Ohanian, a lifelong educator with more than 30 years of experience in administrative leadership and elementary and middle school instruction, has been appointed to the position of Principal of C. & E. Merdinian Armenian Evangelical School.
“At this pivotal moment in preschool, elementary, and middle school education, the Merdinian Board of Directors is thrilled to announce that Dr. Souzy Ohanian has agreed to serve as the next principal of Merdinian,” said Tzoler Oukayan, Chair of the Merdinian Board of Directors. “Throughout her decades-long career in educational leadership, she has demonstrated an unwavering commitment to students’ high academic achievement and personal growth and has prioritized faculty and staff development with remarkable success. We are eager to welcome Dr. Ohanian to the Merdinian community and work together to implement her guiding vision as we write the next chapter of the Merdinian story.”
In her most recent role as Assistant Principal of Elementary at Rose & Alex Pilibos Armenian School, Dr. Ohanian was instrumental in directing school operations, including program planning and implementation, staff hiring and evaluation, strategic planning, and community outreach. In the last 10 years, she contributed to the school’s enrollment growth and provided instructional leadership to staff in the areas of curriculum design, review, and implementation.
Dedicated to the mentorship and development of faculty members, Dr. Ohanian supported and coached teachers to ensure that teaching and learning frameworks were maintained in classrooms. She also developed and presented professional development workshops for staff members and was involved in observing teaching methods and techniques to determine areas for improvement.
In her previous roles at Pilibos as Dean of Curriculum and Instruction and Elementary Academic Director, Dr. Ohanian administered lesson plans and pacing plans for each classroom, designed new programs to implement educational strategies, and conducted both formal and informal school-wide assessments.
Prior to Pilibos, Dr. Ohanian served in the classroom as a first-grade lead teacher and sixth and seventh-grade social studies teacher at Vahan & Anoush Chamlian Armenian School, where she planned and scheduled curricula for multiple grade levels. Dr. Ohanian earned a Bachelor of Arts in liberal studies from California State University, Northridge. After serving in the classroom for more than a decade in first-grade instruction, she furthered her academic pursuits and earned her first Master of Fine Arts in K–12 education/teacher education and a Multiple Subject Teaching Credential. She later earned her second Master of Fine Arts in K–12 educational leadership and politics followed by a Doctor of Education in K–12 curriculum and instruction.
Dr. Ohanian and her husband, Raffi, have two children, Aram and Shant.
U.S. Rep. Jimmy Gomez has added his support to the Armenian Genocide Education Act, a bipartisan measure that seeks 10 million funding for educational programs about this crime against Armenians and other CHristian nations.
Representatives Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Gus Bilirakis (R-FL) introduced the Armenian Genocide Education Act, earlier this month, to fund Library of Congress educational programs about the history, lessons, consequences, and ongoing costs of the Armenian Genocide, reports the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA).
This landmark legislation seeks to provide $10 million in funding over five years for the Library of Congress to educate Americans about Ottoman Turkey’s systematic and deliberate state-sponsored mass murder, national dispossession, cultural erasure, and exile of millions of Armenians, Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Syriacs, Arameans, Maronites, and other Christians, between 1915 and 1923.
Country’s most prominent transgender activist describes her struggle to protect her community from discrimination and violence.
by Mania Israyelyan
Lilit Martirosyan was barely five when she realised she was happier playing with jewelry than the tractors and cars she routinely got as presents. Her family thought she was an oddity, but Martirosyan knew she was simply different, although she did not have the language to express how.
“I was born in a boy’s body, but my gender identity is of a woman, I want society to accept me as a woman, I want to live as a woman as all other women,” Martirosyan told IWPR. “You can never persuade a person against their feelings. I felt like I was living in a different world. The body I was born in was not mine.”
Now 48, Martirosyan has become Armenia’s most prominent transgender activist. In 2015 she was the first Armenian to legally change her gender and first name on a new passport. In 2019 she became the first representative of Armenia’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex community (LGBTI) to speak in parliament, where she denounced the discrimination her community was subject to in the deeply conservative South Caucasus country.
“You live just because you were born,” she said, describing how such treamtnet had made her feel. “You feel lonely and abandoned, useless. It is as if you are not human, you do not exist. You both live and don’t live.”
Martirosyan said that she had experienced huge amounts of prejudice growing up, with continuous family conflict as her parents tried to steer her towards more typically masculine spaces, and constant bullying at school.
Amidst immense pressure, she left home at 13 and, with the help of a friend, went to live on her own. With no family support, Martirosyan focused on one goal – to earn enough to start hormonal therapy.
Although she found work as a waiter and a cook, her wages were not enough to survive on and she turned to sex work to support herself and save enough money for treatment. She went through hell, she said, recalling how she had been beaten up and kidnapped multiple times.
By the time she turned 18, Lilit had saved up enough to begin hormonal therapy, followed by nine surgeries.
“It doesn’t matter who I was in the past,” she said. “I don’t want to be asked about my previous name. I am what I am now and here. I changed my name, I changed my gender…it was an extensively complex process.”
In 2016, Martirosyan founded the Right Side NGO to raise awareness and advocate for the rights of transgender people and provide them with support, including free legal and psychological aid.
“My mission in life is to help people. It keeps me alive,” she said.
On April 5, 2019, she addressed the Armenian parliament’s human rights committee where she called for her “tortured, raped, burnt, stabbed, killed, banished, discriminated,” community to be protected.
She noted that transgender people in Armenia were subjected “to stigma and discrimination in social, medical, legal, economic areas, and … [are left] unemployed, poor and morally abandoned”.
Armenia decriminalised homosexuality in 2003 but intolerance against LGBTI people remains rife. In December 2021, the Council of Europe called on Armenia to adopt anti-discrimination legislation adding sexual orientation and gender identity to the prohibited grounds for discrimination.
After her speech Martirosyan received death threats on social media and some parliamentarians’ verbal attacks included calls for her to be burned alive. The UN and the European diplomats condemned the reaction and, fearing for her life, supported her to temporarily leave the country.
When Martirosyan returned the discrimination continued. In late 2019 she was dragged out of a taxi with a friend and beaten in front of the constitutional court and in 2020 while with another friend they were kicked out of a restaurant.
“Society has turned us into nocturnal beings. We leave home at night, when there is no one in the street,” Martirosyan said. “[At least people] have stopped calling me ‘the boy with the wig,’ and started using the term transgender.”
Discriminated against at home, Martirosyan is hailed abroad: in 2020 she received the Human Rights Tulip, an annual Dutch government award for outstanding activism.
And she is determined to stay in Armenia and contribute to making it a more tolerant country.
Martirosyan said that what kept her going was her faith in God and her mother’s optimism. Over the year, broken ties with her family were mended.
“If God hadn’t given me the strength I would have been over long ago,” she said, adding that relations with her family evolved naturally. “I never told them it is up to you to accept me or reject me. It took time, hard work and a respectful attitude to fix things.”
By Vugar Khalilov
Azerbaijani presidential aide Hikmat Hajiyev has described as accurate only 25 percent of minefield maps provided by Armenia.
Hajiyev made the remarks at a conference on "Humanitarian mine action and sustainable development goals (SDGs)" jointly organized by the Azerbaijan Mine Action Agency (ANAMA) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in Baku on April 1.
"They planted mines instead of trees in our territories. Both soldiers and civilians were killed and injured in the blasts. Unfortunately, only 25 percent of the mine maps provided by Armenia were useful," Hajiyev stressed.
He underlined that millions of mines were planted by Armenians on Azerbaijan’s formerly occupied territories and Azerbaijan is working hard to clear the area of mines.
Hajiyev emphasized that the Azerbaijani regions liberated from Armenian occupation in the second Karabakh war in 2020 are the most mine-littered area in the world.
Hajiyev earlier stated that Azerbaijan faces critical issues such as the restoration and reconstruction of liberated territories, as well as the return of internally displaced persons. The threat of mines is one of the most significant obstacles in this regard, and Azerbaijan hopes for serious international support in eliminating this threat.
In his remarks at the event, ANAMA Chairman Vugar Suleymanov stated that since November 10, 2020, over 25,000 hectares of land have been cleared of mines, and over 55,000 mines and unexploded ordnance have been discovered and neutralized on the liberated territories.
Suleymanov stated that Azerbaijan's Karabakh region ranks first in the world for mine pollution and that due to the magnitude of the problem, the Azerbaijani government prioritizes demining of the liberated territories.
"This issue is in the focus of President Ilham Aliyev, and extensive work is being done in this direction," he said.
It should be noted that the conference, in a hybrid format, brings together key figures from the international community, mine operations operators, government agencies, and civil society to discuss the importance of humanitarian demining activities in mitigating mine threats to human life and normal living conditions.
The event will investigate the potential of humanitarian demining activities for long-term peace and socio-economic development, as well as the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the 16th Sustainable Development Goals, which aim to significantly reduce all forms of violence and related deaths globally.
In particular, the significance of demining in the restoration of Azerbaijan's liberated lands will be evaluated and information on the country's large-scale demining activity will be provided.
ANAMA, in collaboration with partner countries, conducts demining operations on Azerbaijan's liberated territories. The State Border Service and the Defence Ministry also demine the liberated lands.
Armenia deliberately and constantly planted mines on Azerbaijani territories, in violation of the 1949 Geneva Convention, thereby being a major threat to regional peace, security and cooperation.
Armenia submitted to Azerbaijan all mine maps of liberated territories as a result of talks held through the Russian Defence Ministry's mediation on December 4, 2021.
Previously, on June 12, Azerbaijan handed over 15 Armenian prisoners in exchange for a map detailing the location of 97,000 mines in formerly-occupied Aghdam.
On July 3, Armenia submitted to Azerbaijan maps of about 92,000 anti-tank and anti-personnel mines planted during the occupation of Fuzuli and Zangilan regions.
Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a Russia-brokered peace agreement on November 10, 2020, to end 44 days of fighting and work toward a comprehensive resolution.