Author: Parkev Tvankchian

Italy’s Olympic Committee has officially withdrawn its bid to stage the 2024 Games in Rome after the city council voted to oppose the candidacy, the BBC reports.

Rome’s Mayor Virginia Raggi, from the populist Five Star party, had said the city had to prioritise matters such as rubbish collection and corruption.

It means only Paris, Los Angeles and Budapest are left in the running after Boston and Hamburg also abandoned bids.

The International Olympic Committee is due to make a decision next September.

Committee chief Giovanni Malago said the decision meant Italy had been “made to look like fools” and would miss out on investment.

On October 10, Ayb School and Goethe-Institut signed a memorandum of cooperation, which confirms Ayb School as Goethe-Institut partner school, within the framework of “Schools: Partners for the Future” (PASCH) initiative. The solemn ceremony took place at Ayb school.

PASCH is a network, which spans over 1800 schools from around the world that place high value on German. The initiative is carried out by Goethe-Institut along with the Federal Foreign Office, Central Agency for German Schools Abroad (ZfA), German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and Pedagogic Exchange Service (PAD) of the Conference of Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs.

“Ayb School has simply impressed me. It’s a school that shows me once again that Armenia has great hidden potential. The Embassy is overly happy for the cooperation Goethe-Institut and Ayb School will carry on in the future, within the framework of PASCH initiative. I believe this joint project of strengthening German will yield positive results,” said Ambassador of Germany to Armenia Bernhard Matthias Kiesler.

“Our being selected as a partner school means we are an institution that places high value on German and its instruction. This grants our students broader opportunities to pursue higher education in Germany. Knowledge of German is something that students need to have today as German-language education ensures high-quality professional capacity for the European economy and professional capacity is a prerequisite for economic development,” said Head of Ayb School Aram Pakhchanian.

“By selecting Ayb School and integrating it into the PASCH network we have enriched it with a top-notch school with methodological and pedagogical teaching concepts, that serves as a lighthouse in Armenia. The fact that the far stretching mission the school has undertaken is related to German language is important for Ayb and not only – it creates long-term prospects for the development of German language in other schools in Armenia as well,” stressed expert in instruction, representative of Goethe Institute Georgia in Armenia Julia Kramer.

Goethe-Institut Deputy Director Gerlinde Massoudi, Ambassador of Germany to Armenia Bernhard Matthias Kiesler, RA Deputy Minister of Education and Science Manuk Mkrtchyan and Chairman of Ayb School Board of Trustees Fr. Mesrop Aramian and a number of other high-ranking officials attended the ceremony.

On October 3, AGBU welcomed member of Turkish Parliament Garo Paylan to its Central Office in New York. As part of his tour of the United States, Paylan met with AGBU President Berge Setrakian and AGBU Central Board members Ani Manoukian and Vasken Yacoubian.

In his welcoming remarks, Mr. Setrakian paid tribute to Mr. Paylan’s courage in coming forward with his intervention in the Turkish Parliament on April 24 and for his activism in defense of human rights in Turkey.

During the meeting, both parties discussed the role of the diaspora in supporting the democratic process in Turkey. This meeting was the first to take place between AGBU and Paylan and will set the groundwork for future interactions.

Paylan was one of three Armenians elected to the Turkish Parliament in June 2015. A founding member of the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP), he has a track record for defending minority rights in Turkey and has been vocal in calling for the country’s recognition of the Armenian Genocide.

Before his election to the Parliament, he served on the central committee of the HDP and worked with Armenian schools in Istanbul to promote multilingual education.

The first plane carrying humanitarian aid from Armenia to Syria has landed at Hmeinim airbase, the Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs informs.

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs  assisted in the transportation.

Armenia’s Consul General was at the site to receive the humanitarian aid.

Anti-Mafia police in Naples have recovered two Van Gogh paintings stolen from Amsterdam in 2002, the Van Gogh Museum and organized crime investigators said Friday, the Associated Press reports.

The museum in a statement on its website Friday said the paintings, found without their frames, are in “relatively good condition.” It said the two paintings are the 1882 work “Seascape at Scheveningen” and a later work, “Congregation leaving the Reformed Church in Nuenen.”

Police in Naples said the paintings, of “priceless value,” were discovered during a raid as part of a crackdown against a Naples-based Camorra crime clan suspected of cocaine trafficking. Naples prosecutors said more details will be given later at a news conference in the southern Italian city.

The paintings were sequestered along with other property, worth “tens of millions of euros,” said the police. The Financial Guard, a branch of the Italian police, often sequesters financial assets of suspected criminals.

“After all these years, you no longer dare count on a possible return,” the museum quoted its director Alex Rueger as saying, and expressed gratitude to Italian investigators and police.

The museum said the paintings, inspected by a curator, do show “some damage” and it is unclear when they will return to Amsterdam. The museum director was planning to attend the news conference.

– The Andean Parliament, a legislative body composed of representatives of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Chile, approved on September 17 a recognizing the “Armenian Genocide perpetrated by the authorities of the Ottoman Empire between the years 1915-1923” and condemning “any policy of denialwith respect to genocide and crimes against humanity suffered by the Armenian nation.”

The resolution, presented by Pedro de la Cruz, representative of Ecuador, and approved unanimously at a meeting of the organization in Montevideo, expresses its solidarity with the Armenian people and communities of the diaspora, while “urging” the international community to “acknowledge this historical fact as an unconditional support for truth and justice and as a form of rejection of such acts that shame all humanity.”

The Andean Parliament is the “governing body and representative of the peoples of the Andean Community,” according to a constitutive treaty of October 25, 1979. Its work focuses on the “parliamentary management, policy development and popular representation on issues related the Andean integration process such as education, mobility, migration, social and labor rights, energy, environment and climate change, coexistence and security, food security and sovereignty, competitiveness and entrepreneurship, among others.”

Brazil’s Senate has voted to remove President Dilma Rousseff from office for manipulating the budget, the BBC reports.

It puts an end to the 13 years in power of her left-wing Workers’ Party. Ms Rousseff had denied the charges.

Sixty-one senators voted in favour of her dismissal and 20 against, meeting the two-thirds majority needed to remove her from the presidency.

Michel Temer has been sworn in as president and will serve out Ms Rousseff’s term until 1 January 2019.

 – Turkish permission for German lawmakers to visit the Incirlik air base will depend on the German government distancing itself from a resolution branding a 1915 massacre of Armenians as “genocide”, Turkey’s foreign minister said on Monday.

Turkey, angered by a resolution passed by the German parliament in June that described the 1915 massacre of Armenians by Ottoman forces as a “genocide”, has denied German lawmakers access to the base near the Syrian frontier.

Six German surveillance jets and a refuelling tanker are using it to support the U.S.-led coalition’s strikes on Islamic State. Some German lawmakers have threatened to end the mission unless Ankara allows them to visit.

“It depends on the steps taken by Germany. If they take the necessary steps we will enable this visit,” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu told a news conference in Ankara, when asked about allowing the German lawmakers access to the base.

“But unfortunately I have to say that those that mingle and manipulate our history in an unfair manner cannot be allowed on this visit,” he said, in reference to the Armenian resolution.

Foreign ministry officials said “necessary steps” meant the German government distancing itself from the parliamentary resolution and making clear it did not support it.

Germany’s European Affairs Minister Michael Roth, who just returned to Germany from a visit to Ankara, earlier told broadcaster Suedwestrundfunk that the two countries had made progress in resolving the dispute over Incirlik.

“I have the impression that there is great movement here,” Roth said. “I hope and wish that parliamentarians from our Bundestag will soon be able to visit our soldiers.”

Roth said he was received warmly and openly in Turkey during a visit aimed at rebuilding German-Turkish ties.

Tense relations between the NATO allies soured further after Turkey’s failed July 15 coup, with Turkey unhappy about what it saw as a slow German response in condemning the action.

Roth said Germany had immediately condemned the coup attempt, but could have responded more compassionately.

The 31st Summer Olympic cauldron was lit in Rio de Janeiro’s legendary Maracana stadium marking the start of the most expected sporting event of the last four years.

About 74 thousands spectators were present during the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games held in South America for the first time. Before the start of the official ceremony the organizers presented Brazil’s history through modern computer design.

Afterwards, athletes from 205 countries of the world made an honorary circle in the stadium. Armenia’s flag bearer was swimmer Vahan Mkhitaryan. Armenia is represented by 33 athletes.

The president of the IOC, Thomas Bach, and the president of the Rio-2016 Organising Committee, Carlos Nuzman, welcomed the athletes urging them to remain faithful to the Olympic ideology. The honor of lighting the Olympic cauldron was given to Olympic bronze and “Pierre de Coubertin’’ medalist Cordeiro de Lima.

The Azerbaijani side violated the ceasefire 31 times at the line of contact with the Karabakh forces last night, NKR Defense Ministry reports.

The rival fired more than 350 shots from firearms of different calibers in the direction of the Armenian positions.

Private of the NKR Defense Army Gevorg Arthur Harutyunyan, born in 1996, was mortally wounded in mine explosion at about 15:00, August 2nd.

Investigation into the details of the case is under way.

The NKR Defense Ministry shares the sorrow of the heavy loss and expresses its support to the families and friends of the soldier.