12:29, 6 July 2022
YEREVAN, JULY 6, ARMENPRESS. Align Technology, an American manufacturer of 3D digital scanners and the Invisalign clear aligners used in orthodontics, headquartered in Tempe, Arizona, opened office in Armenia’s capital of Yerevan.
The company has around 22,500 employees globally. It has transferred some of its staffers from Moscow to Yerevan, but there are currently 32 vacant positions in the Yerevan office.
14:20, 5 July 2022
YEREVAN, JULY 5, ARMENPRESS. The US administration has again reaffirmed the circumvention of Resolution 907 of the Freedom Support Act, which blocks direct military aid to Azerbaijan, ARMENPRESS reports Brad Sherman, a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, a member of the Congressional Armenian Caucus, expressed his disagreement with the decision in an interview with "Voice of America".
"We should not abandon Resolution 907 and provide any assistance to oil-rich Azerbaijan, which has unleashed an aggressive war. The aid we provide is not large, but I think it is important diplomatically, so it should be stopped," said the congressman.
In his opinion, American aid for humanitarian projects in Artsakh should be increased, and Armenia should be given the opportunity to be included in the "Millennium Challenge" program.
"The World Bank ranked Armenia among those with above average income. I would like it to be so, but we have to take into account the economic consequences of the terrible war, the coronavirus epidemic," he said.
Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) Government Affairs Director Tereza Yerimyan shared findings from her recent, three-person ANCA fact-finding mission to Artsakh in testimony submitted this week to the U.S. Senate panel drafting the FY23 foreign aid bill, ANCA reports.
Yerimyan underscored the longstanding calls for to end all U.S. military aid to Azerbaijan and the delivery of an urgently needed $50 million aid package to Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh).
“Having recently returned from a fact-finding mission in Artsakh, I can bear witness to the devastating humanitarian impact of Azerbaijan’s aggression against Artsakh’s civilian population,” stated Yerimyan. “As many as 100,000 Armenians were displaced. Many schools and hospitals, destroyed during the war, remain in ruins. Countless homes remain uninhabitable. The maternity ward of the state hospital has been rendered completely unusable. In addition to losing at least 70% of their indigenous lands, the Armenians of Artsakh now live upon a landscape littered with landmines and, especially, unexploded ordinance, posing a threat to the daily lives of children and families.”
Yerimyan continued, “Azerbaijan, for its part, continues to illegally hold and abuse Armenian prisoners of war, in contravention of the ceasefire agreement and Baku’s own commitments under international law. During our recent ANCA visit to Artsakh we interviewed a repatriated POW – an 80-year-old female civilian who was captured in her village home, witnessed the beating of her husband, and was tortured herself.”
Yerimyan made the case that Congress should hold the Aliyev regime accountable for the ethnic-cleansing of Artsakh and Baku’s ongoing occupation of sovereign Armenian territory by cutting off all U.S. military aid to its armed forces. She also pressed for a long-term developmental investment in Artsakh, to help its families “rebuild their lives and resettle in safety upon their indigenous Armenian homeland.”
Speaking to the need for increased aid to Armenia, Yerimyan prioritized U.S. aid programs aimed at materially strengthening Armenia’s security and sovereignty in the face of escalating Turkish and Azerbaijani threats.
In May, Yerimyan, ANCA IT Director Nerses Semerjian, and Programs Director Alex Manoukian were joined by ANC International’s Gevorg Ghukasyan in a week-long fact-finding mission to Artsakh. While there, they worked closely with the ANC of Artsakh, which was launched in September 2021, to focus on protecting the rights of Artsakh’s citizens, securing international recognition of the Artsakh Republic, and restoring Artsakh’s territorial integrity.
The ANCA team discussed Artsakh’s geopolitical challenges with Foreign Minister David Babayan and learned new details about the plight of the 100,000 Armenian refugees forced from their ancestral homes during the 2020 war from Artsakh Republic Minister of Social Development and Migration Armine Petrosyan. Artsakh Human Rights Ombudsman Gegham Stepanyan discussed the effects of Azerbaijan’s ongoing attacks on border villages and the water and gas challenges facing the Artsakh population.
During meetings with Vardan Tadevosyan, the founder and director of the Lady Cox Rehabilitation Center, the ANCA team learned more about the life-changing assistance the center provides for soldiers and civilians injured during the 2020 Artsakh war, while working with children and adults with physical and mental disabilities. The ANCA team also met with representatives of The HALO Trust, whose demining efforts have saved countless lives in Artsakh for over two decades, in part through ANCA-supported U.S. assistance.
On June 18, Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili paid a visit to northern Armenia’s spa town of Dilijan to meet with his Armenian counterpart Nikol Pashinyan.
The two Prime Ministers discussed bilateral relations and cooperation in the fields of trade, economy, transport, logistics, and culture, per the Georgian Government’s press release.
The parties also touched on the current situation and challenges facing the region.
The PMs also expressed readiness for future cooperation and the deepening of “friendly” relations.
FlyOne Armenia today statred regular flights to Lebanon.
The flights will be operated from Yerevan’s Zvartnots Airport to Beirut’s Rafik Hariri International Airport.
Flights will be operated twice a week on Mondays to Thursdays.
“We were looking forward to FLYONE ARMENIA flights to Beirut. It is an important event for us,” said Aram Ananyan, President of the Board of FlyOne Armenia as cut the red ribbon at Zvartnots.
“It is an opportunity to connect our two friendly peoples more closely, to make travel opportunities accessible to tourists, businessmen and the Armenian community. We will do our best to make these flights in demand for our passengers,” he added.
Armenia’s opposition groups will continue protests aimed at ousting Nikol Pashinyan and will renew their efforts to expand the resistance movement launched in early May, opposition leader and deputy parliament speaker Ishkhan Saghatelyan told a rally in Yerevan’s France Square on Friday evening.
“Rallies and marches will continue. At the same time, we will carry out organizational work to give new impetus to the movement and prepare for a more decisive and crucial stage of the struggle,” he noted.
Saghatelyan says coordination commissions have already been set up in around five regions of Armenia as promised earlier and the protest movement is proceeding according to the plan.
In a change of tactics, the opposition announced plans last week to hold anti-government rallies in Yerevan on a weekly basis.
Public debates are planned every Wednesday, while opposition rallies are scheduled for Fridays.
“If necessary, we will hold urgent rallies as we did last week. You should always be ready for urgent rallies and acts of disobedience," Saghatelyan said.
A Bayraktar Akıncı UCAV loaded with the KGK-SIHA-82 is seen in this photo provided on June 15, 2022. (DHA Photo)
Turkey’s most advanced and sophisticated drone, the Bayraktar Akıncı unmanned combat aerial vehicle (UCAV), has successfully completed another important stage in the ammunition integration process.
The developing company, Baykar, said the drone has completed a firing test with the domestically developed KGK-SIHA-82 (wing-assisted guidance kit) ammunition.
It said the drone, which took off from Çorlu province in northwestern Turkey on June 14, successfully completed the first firing test carried out for a determined coordinate on the sea off the coast of Sinop on the Black Sea.
The electro-optical camera on the Akıncı and the telemetry antennas on the ground confirmed that the ammunition weighing 340 kilograms (750 pounds) hit the target 30 kilometers (18.64 miles) away with pinpoint accuracy.
The KGK-SIHA-82 useful load has been developed by TÜBITAK Defense Industries Research and Development Institute (SAGE).
The Bayraktar Akıncı, which recently performed another successful firing test for a sea surface target with the Teber-82 Guidance Kit developed by another defense giant, Roketsan, also holds the altitude record in Turkish national aviation history.
The drone broke the altitude record by reaching an altitude of 40,170 feet in the test flight on March 11.
Bayraktar Akıncı UCAVs, which entered the inventory with a ceremony attended by President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Aug. 29, 2021, are currently actively used by the security forces in operational duties. So far, six Bayraktar Akıncı UCAV have entered service.
Meanwhile, export contracts have been signed with three countries for this particular combat drone.
Within the scope of the contracts, the Bayraktar Akıncı UCAV and ground control systems are expected to be delivered periodically starting from 2023. Baykar, which made its first national UAV export in 2012, completed the export of $664 million worth of UCAVs in 2021, obtaining more than 80% of its revenues from exports.
ArmInfo. " We act in cooperation with Azerbaijan in the process of normalizing relations with Armenia," Efkan Ala, Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) vice-chairman, stated.
According to him, meetings within the process of normalization of relations with Armenia continue.
"Meetings of special representatives took place. We expect improvement in relations. I hope that the other side is also focused on this. Results will be achieved that are useful not only for the two countries, but also for all states of the region," Ala said, Haqqin.az reports.
It should be noted that on May 3 the third meeting of the Special Representatives of Armenia and Turkey to normalize relations, RA NA Vice Speaker Ruben Rubinyan and Ambassador Serdar Kilic took place in Vienna. The special representatives confirmed that the ultimate goal of the talks is a full-fledged settlement between Armenia and Turkey, which was agreed upon during their first meeting in Moscow on January 14.
The start of the normalization process was announced on December 13, 2021 by Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu. At the same time, he stressed that Ankara will act in coordination with Azerbaijan regarding steps to normalize relations with Armenia.
At the same time, Yerevan considers it unconstructive to link the normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations with the processes between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — The UCLA Promise Armenian Institute and the Armenian Film Foundation are pleased to present “Stations of the Cross on the Via Dolorosa, 1875-2022: A Photographic and Archaeological Journey,” a webinar that will take place on Wednesday, June 29 at 10:00 AM (Pacific Time) via the Zoom platform.
Launching a new exhibit from the Armenian Image Archive, the webinar will explore the 14 “Stations of the Cross” along the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem, highlighting photographs from the Bonfils Studio in 1875 and new images from photographer Jack Persekian, taken specifically for this exhibit. The event will also include a survey of the archaeological evidence regarding the presumed burial site of Jesus of Nazareth by archaeologist and professor Shimon Gibson, Ph.D. of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Registration for this webinar is required and free.
With the development of (then) more advanced photographic processes, such as the collodion process, European photographers identified the importance of documenting images of the Near East. Many converged in Palestine to capture its archeological sites, biblical scenes and cultural artifacts. Around 1875, Félix Bonfils and his associates embarked on a photographic mission to document the processional path Jesus of Nazareth took to his crucifixion on the Via Dolorosa (Latin for “Sorrowful Way”).
George Saboungi. The Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem, Palestine, ca. 1880.
This webinar will feature the exhibit curator Joseph Malikian, Ph.D., who will explore the innovative contribution to photography by the Bonfils Studio. Persekian, who embarked on a project in 2022 to retrace and visually record the cobblestone-lined route on the Via Dolorosa and the symbolic tomb of Christ within the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, will examine this project and his challenges photographing the Via Dolorosa. Dr. Gibson will discuss what the archaeological analysis can tell us about the supposed site of Jesus’ burial in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
This webinar is co-sponsored by the UCLA Richard Hovannisian Endowed Chair in Modern Armenian History, the UCLA Narekatsi Chair in Armenian Studies, the UCLA Library, the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research (NAASR) and the Ararat-Eskijian Museum.
The Armenian Image Archive (AIA) is the first of the new collaborations between PAI and AFF, which signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) in October of 2021 to partner on a range of projects that will support Armenian film and photography at UCLA.
18:00,
YEREVAN, JUNE 13, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who is in Doha on an official visit, received Mansoor Al-Mahmoud, CEO of the Qatar Investment Authority in his residence, ARMENPRESS was informed from the Office of the Prime Minister.
Issues related to the cooperation between the Government of the Republic of Armenia the Investment Authority were discussed during the meeting. In particular, the sides touched upon the opportunities of implementing joint programs in the fields of water resources management, agriculture, energy and high technologies. Prime Minister Pashinyan spoke about the priorities of the Armenian Government in these directions and the promising projects, for the implementation of which it is possible to establish close cooperation.
Mansoօr Al-Mahmoud thanked for the reception and noted that the agency headed by him is ready to establish effective cooperation with the Armenian side.