Author: Janet Ekmekjian

President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin, President of the Republic of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, President of the Republic of Kyrgyzstan Almazbek Atambaev, President of the Republic of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon, Prime Minister of Kazakhstan Bakijan Sagintaev, and Secretary General of the CSTO Nikolay Bordzyuzhahave arrived in  in Yerevan to participate in the session of the CSTO Collective Security Council.

At the Presidential Palace they were greeted by the President of Armenia, Chairman of the CSTO Collective Security Council Serzh Sargsyan.

After the welcome ceremony, there will take place a session in the restricted format with the participation of the Heads of the delegations of the CSTO member states and Secretary General. The meeting will be followed by a session in the extended format with the participation of the official delegations.

Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan attended today the opening of the Fifth Armenian-Russian Inter-Regional Forum and International Forum of Eurasian Partnership.

Greeting the participants, the Prime Minister said “the Fifth Armenian-Russian Inter-Regional Forum is a useful platform for the deepening of bilateral ties.”

“Despite the high level of the Armenian-Russian relations, there is still an unprecedented potential for their deepening, and the international integration processes taking place with the Eurasian framework can only contribute to this,” PM Karen Karapetyan said.

Referring to the International Forum of Eurasian Partnership, the Prime Minister wished productive work to the participants. “There are many similarities and there is willingness to reinforce the existing close business ties,” he said.

A number of agreements on Armenian-Russian cooperation were signed within the framework of the forums.

The Fifth Armenian-Russian Inter-Regional Forum aims to reveal potential partners interested in the export of goods and products, making investments and implementing joint programs.

The International Forum of Eurasian Partnership held with the support of the Armenian Government and the Eurasian Economic Commission aims to contribute to the development of integration processes targeted at the expansion of bilateral and multilateral economic cooperation.

Photo: Reuters

 

International prosecutors investigating the downing of flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine in 2014 say the missile that hit the plane was fired from territory controlled by Russian-backed rebels, the BBC reports.

They said the missile launcher was brought into Ukraine from Russia.

All 298 people on board the Boeing 777 died when it broke apart in midair flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur.

The Dutch-led Joint Investigation Team (JIT) consists of prosecutors from the Netherlands, Australia, Belgium, Malaysia and Ukraine.

An inquiry by the Dutch Safety Board last year found that a Russian-made Buk missile hit the plane but did not say where it was fired from.

About 50 cases of ceasefire violation by the Azerbaijani side were registered at the line of contact with the Karabakh forces over the weekend.

The rival used firearms of different calibers as it fired over 600 shots in the direction of the Armenian positions, The NKR Defense Ministry reports.

The front divisions of the NKR Defense Army confidently continue with their military duty and resort to response action sin case of necessity.

President Serzh Sargsyan today met with heads of a number of structures functioning in the Diaspora and discussed various issues of pan-Armenian significance, President’s Press Office reports.

During the meeting President of the Republic of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan handed in the “Tigran Mets” order to Artsakh Republic President Bako Sahakyan for selfless devotion and substantial contribution to the formation and strengthening of Artsakh statehood and solution of the issues of nationwide significance.

Vice-President of the National Assembly, Head of the Armenian delegation to the CSTO Parliamentary Assembly Edward Sharmazanov will pay a working visit to Saint Petersburg September 16-20.

Sharmazanov will monitor the Russian parliamentary elections within the monitoring mission of the CSTO Parliamentary Assembly.

The Vice-Speaker is expected to meet with CSTO Executive Secretary Pyotr Ryabukhin and leadership of the Lennigrad Region.

“After Genocide: From Trauma to Rebirth, A Gendered Perspective”, a conference organized by Women in War (France) in partnership with the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography of Armenia, DVV International, and AGBU Armenia, will be held in Yerevan from September 17 to 19.

The conference will bring together over fifty speakers from all over the world to discuss the gendered nature of personal, political and social consequences after genocide.

Feminist thinkers and activists, historians, sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists, and lawyers will share differing perspectives. This project was made possible by the generous sponsorship of the Institute Internationale de la Francophonie, BMZ and other partners.

– A dramatized recreation of one of the Soviet Union’s most devastating natural disasters — the Spitak earthquake in northern Armenia in December 1988 — has been chosen as Armenia’s submission for best foreign-language film Oscar consideration.

The $3 million disaster movie Earthquake (Zemletryasenie) was directed by Sarik Andreasyan and produced by Moscow-based Mars Media, headed by Ruben Dishdishyan, who founded Russia’s top independent production company Central Partnership in 1995 before stepping down five years ago.

Earthquake tells the story of the massive quake that destroyed more than 300 communities and killed 25,000 people. Focused around the story of two young men, Andrey Berezhnov and Robert Melkonyan, whose fates were already intertwined by an earlier tragedy — a car crash caused by Andrey that killed Robert’s parents — the film brings them together in the same rescue squad as they struggle to cope with a disaster that eclipses their own personal stories.

Shot in Armenia and in Moscow on specially built sets — to spare the people of Gyumri (formerly Leninakan) the distress of recreating earthquake damage in a city where memories after nearly 30 years remain raw — the film, long tipped as this year’s Oscar entry from Armenia, beat two other shortlisted films in a secret ballot of the National Film Academy of Armenia.

In comments posted on , Dishdishyan wrote: “This is amazing news! Thank you very much to the [National Film Academy members] for their trust! We will try to justify it. We’ve still got a long way to go, but it’s a start. Thank you to all the filmmakers and participants in the movie and especially the director, Sarik Andreasyan.”

Turkey’s prime minister offered condolences on Friday over the death of Uzbek President Islam Karimov, Reuters reports.

“Uzbek President Islam Karimov has passed away. May God’s mercy be upon him, as the Turkish Republic we are sharing the pain and sorrow of Uzbek people,” Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said, speaking in a televised meeting with his cabinet.

Photo: Getty Images

 

Ireland should recover up to €13bn (£11bn) from Apple in back taxes, the European Commission has ruled.

After a three-year investigation, it has concluded that the US firm’s tax benefits are illegal.

The Commission said Ireland enabled the company to pay substantially less than other businesses, in effect paying a corporate tax rate of no more than 1%.

Ireland and Apple both said they disagreed with the decision and would appeal against it.

“Member states cannot give tax benefits to selected companies – this is illegal under EU state aid rules,” said Commissioner Margarethe Vestager.

“The Commission’s investigation concluded that Ireland granted illegal tax benefits to Apple, which enabled it to pay substantially less tax than other businesses over many years,” she added.

The standard rate of Irish corporate tax is 12.5%. The Commissions’s investigation concluded that Apple had effectively paid 1% tax on its European profits in 2003 and about 0.005% in 2014.

Ms Vestager said that the tax agreement reached between Ireland and Apple meant that the company’s taxable profits “did not correspond to economic reality”.