Jordan and Armenia finalise air services agreement

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Nov 5 2018


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Armenian President urges international community to stop militarization of Karabakh conflict

Arminfo, Armenia
Nov 1 2018
Armenian President urges international community to stop militarization of Karabakh conflict


Yerevan,November 01. ArmInfo. Marianna Mkrtchyan. Armenian President Armen Sarkisyan in Minsk participated in the discussions of the Core Group of the Munich Security Conference on arms control and confidence building, as well as regional conflicts.

As reported to ArmInfo in the press service of the RA President, Armen Sargsyan spoke at the discussions of regional conflicts, noting that he wants to share his remarks as a participant in the event and does not intend to make official statements on the situation in Armenia, relations with Turkey and Azerbaijan, exclusively peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict within the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group.

Touching upon voiced opinions, in particular, statements by the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko regarding stability, the President of Armenia stated that if there is no stability, then it is impossible to predict what will happen tomorrow.

Speaking of a multipolar, bipolar, and unipolar world, the president said in particular: "This indicates that we are entering a period when not one or two votes are decisive, but many votes."

Referring to the role of small states in ensuring security, Sargsyan stated that the world is changing rapidly, and in this fleeting world technological changes are smoothly becoming one of the challenges, and it is necessary to understand what behavior will be manifested on our part in this area. In his opinion, the main thing in this issue will be predictability. Sargsyan expressed the conviction that in the new world, the voices of all should be heard, since even the smallest conflict can become a source of serious problems, develop into a regional one, and then go beyond the region. As an example, he cited the Donbass.

"We must be careful in dealing with small, frozen conflicts, as they can become dangerous, this also applies to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Unfortunately, what happens in the region can be described as a high level of tension. I think that 20 years ago, we could hope for more stability. I would like to urge all the participants, representatives of large states, to stop the militarization of small conflicts, including the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. This is a small territory, but as a result of conflict, Armenia and Azerbaijan are increasing their weapons. Of course, these are not nuclear weapons, but they complicate the situation, because today technologies are developing day by day, and today weapons are becoming more and more dangerous, "the Armenian President said.

Touching on the time factor in the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Sargsyan stated: "We are aware that time is a relative concept. If it works for peace, then we can wait, if it works for war, it is too short. I'm deeply concerned the militarization policy on the part of Azerbaijan and how much money is spent on it. All this indicates the accumulation of serious military potential. If you pay attention to this, you will see that time does not work for the world. th reaction? Yes! We must not only talk, but to act in the world. " He also stated that soon elections will be held in Armenia, as a result of which a legal government and parliament will be formed, there will be people who can sit at the negotiating table with Azerbaijan. Sarkisyan expressed the conviction that in reality everything depends on the will of the people. Appealing to the people of the Republic of Artsakh, the President of Armenia thanked once again the OSCE for the efforts that the organization makes to resolve the problem. "There is only one way to resolve the conflict – peaceful, there is no military way. If hostilities resume, then everyone will suffer, and the people living in Artsakh, Azerbaijan, Armenia and the whole world. In other words, there is only one way to a peaceful settlement through the OSCE Minsk Group, "Sarkisyan concluded.

"China-Eurasia" first international conference held in Yerevan, Armenia

ArmenPress, Armenia
Oct 26 2018
"China-Eurasia" first international conference held in Yerevan, Armenia


YEREVAN, OCTOBER 26, ARMENPRESS. The first international China-Eurasia conference can boost attraction of investments from China to Armenia.

Mher Sahakyan, head of the China-Eurasia political and strategic research foundation, told ARMENPRESS that currently China’s role in world policy and economy has increased.

“This country plays an important role in the current global developments, and it’s important for Armenia to follow China, as well as the ongoing processes there. China deepens its influence in the Eurasian continent by One Belt, One Road program and is going to invest more than 1 trillion within the frames of the program”, Sahakyan said.

The first international China-Eurasia conference launched in Yerevan on October 26, within the frames of which scientists from 12 countries, in particular Finland, Russia, China, Portugal, UK and Pakistan, have arrived in Armenia.

Armenia must be able to present programs thanks to which it would be possible to be included in the program and bring some part of that investments to Armenia. By inviting our partners here we aim to awaken their interest towards Armenia so that they will conduct research on our country”, he said.

The conference is co-organized by the Institute of Oriental Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia.

Armenpress: Pashinyan’s probable nomination in upcoming election to be formal technicality in pre-arranged scenario of being vetoed to disband parliament

Pashinyan’s probable nomination in upcoming election to be formal technicality in pre-arranged scenario of being vetoed to disband parliament

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YEREVAN, OCTOBER 17, ARMENPRESS. Acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has commented on his earlier statement when he said that he might be nominated as candidate for prime minister in parliament as a formal technicality at the first round of election, in a pre-arranged scenario of not being elected in order for the parliament to be disbanded.

Speaking to RFE/RL’s Armenian service Azatutyun Radio, Pashinyan said that it is just a political matter. “It is a legal issue. And lawyers are debating it. Frankly speaking as result of discussions of the second half of the day the opinion that this kind of an interpretation isn’t accurate – regarding the need for nomination – was overwhelming. Therefore, this is just a legal issue,” he said.

He added that he simply didn’t want any nuance to be ignored and that it is just a formality.

He said that a political decision will be made after the final discussion.

Pashinyan resigned as prime minister yesterday in order to trigger the process required for calling early elections of parliament. The parliament will be dissolved if it fails to elect a new prime minister twice within two weeks after Pashinyan’s resignation.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan




Exhibition: ‘Old and New Yerevan’: Unique photo exhibition dedicated to capital’s 2800th anniversary

Panorama, Armenia
Oct 15 2018
Culture 17:56 15/10/2018 Armenia

A unique photo exhibition dedicated to the 2800th anniversary of Yerevan will open at the capital on Friday, 19 October, to bring to light the city’s history and current life.

The exhibits include the copies of the glass photographs of the city taken by Artashes Vruyr in 1927 from the collection of the Service for the Protection of Historical Environment and Cultural Museum-Reservations SNCO, as well as the old photos of the capital taken from Yerevan History Museum.

The photos will be showcased at Metronome Center in downtown Yerevan, the service told Panorama.am.

They will tell about the architecture, characteristics, buildings, daily life and outstanding personalities of the old and new Yerevan.

The exhibition is organized at the initiative of the Service for the Protection of Historical Environment and Cultural Museum-Reservations.     

 

Robert Bairamian, Flamboyant prep school headmaster who taught Shane MacGowan and the President of Ghana

The Daily Telegraph (London)
Friday
Robert Bairamian, Flamboyant prep school headmaster who taught Shane MacGowan and the President of Ghana
 
 
ROBERT BAIRAMIAN, who has died aged 83, was a prepschool headmaster and classics teacher whose pupils included the BBC's Jeremy Vine, the current President of Ghana and Shane MacGowan, lead singer of the Celtic punk band Pogues.
 
In a teaching career lasting more than 60 years, Bairamian spread a love of Greek and Latin across prep schools in Kent, Surrey and north London. He taught with such a mixture of intellect, kindness and rascally wit that his pupils remembered him with deep fondness for the rest of their lives.
 
When not teaching boys the finer points of the gerundive, he encouraged them to put drawing pins on each other's chairs. Driving a series of Audi and Mercedes cars, and immaculately dressed – with a silk handkerchief poking out of his breast pocket and a hint of Tabac aftershave – he brought a touch of glamour to the world of the post-war prep school.
 
He became headmaster at Holmewood House prep school, near Tunbridge Wells, at only 24. From the beginning, he encouraged admissions from across the world, particularly Nigeria and Ghana.
 
At his funeral, a message was read out from the President of Ghana, Nana Akufo-Addo, recalling Bairamian as his teacher in the 1950s: "A young Cambridge undergraduate, swarthy, handsome, charismatic, gregarious, a Cambridge hockey Blue, then parttime member of the staff, who loved sports and encouraged us to shed any feeling of inferiority, if any, both on the games field and in the classroom."
 
Bairamian was gifted at bringing out the best in all pupils – whether in academic studies, sport, drama or music. For example, when Shane MacGowan attended Holmewood in the late 1960s, Bairamian was immediately struck by his talents.
 
"He was very unusual indeed," Bairamian recalled, "one of the most unusual personalities I've ever, ever met. I thought he would end up in the drama scene. At Westminster School [where MacGowan went on to], they asked whether I'd written his English paper. They said they'd never seen anything like this before."
 
Throughout his career, dozens of Bairamian's pupils won scholarships to public schools. In the late 1960s he drove boys to their exams at Ampleforth in his dazzling white Mercedes. He liked to shout "Achtung Polizei!" at police cars and got his sons to translate pub signs into Latin when he was driving.
 
At Ampleforth, he stayed with the Benedictine monks while the boys – supported and encouraged by his presence – duly won their scholarships. The following year, when he drove up more boys for the scholarship exam, he took the previous year's scholars out to dinner at a pub on the Yorkshire Moors, introducing them to the finest steak and Château d'Yquem.
 
Throughout his lessons, he peppered his conversation with the Latin he loved. To Haydn Keenan (now a film director in Australia) at Holmewood, he said, on hearing his exam results: "Well, Keenan, you passed – mirabile dictu!" As a classics master in the early 1980s at North Bridge House School, by Regent's Park in north London, he taught the tricky ablative absolute by referring to himself as Bobo duce – "With Bob as our leader".
 
He was known as Bob to friends, while the BBC's Jeremy Vine, when he was at Aberdour School, Surrey, in the 1970s, nicknamed him "Cresta Bear" after the polar bear on Cresta fizzy drink bottles. Bairamian called Vine "In vino veritas".
 
After one North Bridge House pupil won a scholarship to Westminster, Bairamian promptly whisked the boy's parents off to a slap-up dinner at a grand restaurant with his friend, the broadcaster Sandy Gall. Bairamian paid for the dinner with the proceeds of a large bet he had wagered on the boy getting a scholarship. The identity of the punter who took the bet remains a mystery.
 
Robert Bairamian was born on March 18 1935 in Cyprus, where he spent his first 10 years. His father was Sir Vahe Bairamian, Chief Justice of Sierra Leone, a Judge of Appeal in Nigeria and editor of the Nigerian Law Reports. As Bob used to say, he was the "first and only Armenian to be knighted". His mother was Eileen Elsie Connelly, headmistress of the English School in Nicosia, Cyprus.
 
At Dover College in Kent, Bairamian was head prefect, captain of cricket, hockey and squash and editor of The Dovorian. At St Catharine's College, Cambridge, he read Classics and played cricket and hockey for the university.
 
In 1957, he became assistant headmaster at Holmewood House, before becoming headmaster in 1959. In 1975 he moved to Aberdour School, Surrey, then to North Bridge House in London, and then to Claremont School, East Sussex, in 1982, before his final post at St Christopher's, Hove. He retired in 2001 but continued to tutor in classics until his death.
 
Bairamian was married four times and had eight sons. By Jane Crawford, he had Rupert and Justin; by Jill Hume-Kendal, he had Simon, Julian and Rupert; by Shelagh Kittermaster, he had three more sons, Philip, Johnny and Nigel. In 1986 he married Ros Daunt, to whose son, Seton, he was an affectionate stepfather. They remained happily married until her death in 2013.
 
Robert Bairamian, born March 18 1935, died September 7 2018

Azerbaijani Press: Actions of Armenian PM’s wife: if not stupidity, then provocation

AzerNews, Azerbaijan
Oct 12 2018

By  Trend

Armenia continues to take provocative actions against Azerbaijan, not abandoning attempts to hinder the negotiation process aimed at peaceful settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

As is known, once again such an attempt has been recently made by the Armenian side on the initiative of Armenian prime minister’s wife Anna Hakobyan within the “Women for Peace” campaign.

The Armenian side chose the occupied Azerbaijani territories as a platform for implementing the “mission of good and peace”. This time the Armenian side invited female public figures from Russia. Among them were founder of the VERA Hospice Charity Fund Anna Federmesser, writer Lyudmila Ulitskaya, "Women's dialogue" party leader Yelena Semerikova.

Commenting on this fact, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry stressed that attempts under the guise of a “humanitarian mission” to push a group of women from the Russian Federation to make a visit to the occupied Azerbaijani territories are not consistent with the mandate of Russia as a co-chair country of the OSCE Minsk Group.

These attempts do not serve to the conflict settlement and do not correspond to the spirit of the conversation held in Dushanbe between the president of Azerbaijan and the prime minister of Armenia. It was stressed that this issue would be raised by the Azerbaijani embassy in Moscow at the Russian Foreign Ministry.

Meanwhile, in an interview with Trend, a well-known Russian security expert and TV presenter Yevgeny Mikhailov called Hakobyan’s initiative illogical.

Mikhailov stressed that Hakobyan stands for peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, but at the same time invites a delegation of Russian women, including notorious writer Ulitskaya due to her opposition views, to the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

“The question is – why did the Armenian side invite the Russian delegation, rather than the Azerbaijani one? Mikhailov said.

“Armenia is in a conflict with Azerbaijan, not Russia,” he said. “The visit of Azerbaijani delegation to the Nagorno-Karabakh region would be more logical. I think that these actions of the Armenian side will not in any way speed up the settlement process.”

“Moreover, everyone knows Baku’s reaction to such visits to Azerbaijan’s territories,” Mikhailov said. “That is, it is clear that those Russian women who visited the Nagorno-Karabakh region at the invitation of Hakobyan will be added soon to the list of undesirable people in Azerbaijan. And this will be correct."

“If not stupidity, then Hakobyan’s actions are a provocation that does not bring the sides closer to peace,” he added.

“Most likely, women deliberately chose this provocation for one purpose – to support the actions of Armenia in Azerbaijani territories,” Mikhailov said, adding that such actions cannot be called peacemaking.

“Yerevan, apparently, has not fully realized that it is impossible to solve problems through war,” he added.

"Therefore, until now, all Yerevan’s actions, including the invitation of Russian women to the Nagorno-Karabakh region, are aimed at the development of the conflict and attempts to convince society of its one-sided rightness,” Mikhailov said.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.

168: Parliament adopts amendments in public holiday law at first hearing

Category
Society

The Armenian parliament has adopted the bill on amending the law on public holidays at first hearing with 63 MPs voting in favor, 0 against and 1 abstention.

The second hearing will take place today at 18:00.

The special session was convened at the recommendation of the Cabinet to debate amending the law on public holidays and remembrance days.

The issue was debated during yesterday’s Cabinet meeting and approved.

Under the bill, the government seeks to declare October 11 and 12 as non working days, shifting them to two Saturdays afterwards, in order to facilitate technical matters concerning the La Francophonie summit.

Yerevan is hosting the XVII International Organisation of La Francophonie summit in 2018.

The events are planned from October 7 to October 12, with the summit itself scheduled for the final two days.

Aznavour: French singer defied odds to command global stage

Los Angeles Times
October 3, 2018 Wednesday 


CHARLES AZNAVOUR, 1924 – 2018;
French singer defied odds to command global stage


by  Kim Willsher

Charles Aznavour's start in showbiz was unpromising: He was small, measuring just 5-foot-3; made nervous gestures on stage; and was told by voice coaches that he had no charisma and could not sing.

Aznavour sang anyway. A young protege of the legendary Edith Piaf, for whom he was a warm-up act at Paris' Moulin Rouge, he went on to such global acclaim that his fans deemed him France's Frank Sinatra.

On Monday, after a career spanning more than eight decades, the French Armenian singer died, at age 94, at his home in Provence in southeast France. The news brought an outpouring of grief and tributes across France.

President Emmanuel Macron tweeted: "Charles Aznavour was profoundly French, deeply attached to his Armenian roots and recognized throughout the world. He has accompanied the joys and sorrows of three generations. His masterpieces, the tone of his voice, his unique radiance will long survive him."

Former French leader Francois Hollande also weighed in, tweeting: "From Yerevan to Paris he sang for love and liberty in all cities of the world. Aznavour has just said adieu, but for us he will always be on stage."

Aznavour was born in Paris to Armenian immigrants in 1924. At 9, he had roles in a Paris stage play and a film, and left school early to begin a career dancing and singing.

During the Nazi occupation of France in World War II, the Aznavour family hid Jews and others facing persecution from the Gestapo, actions that in 2017 prompted Israeli President Reuven Rivlin to present Aznavour and his older sister, Aida, with the Raoul Wallenberg Award for their wartime activities.

Aznavour recorded more than 1,200 songs in eight languages and sold more than 180 million records. His lyrics were mostly about love, but also about marriage and — ahead of his time — homosexuality and men showing their emotions.

He performed around the world, including at New York City's Carnegie Hall, and penned songs interpreted by Fred Astaire, Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Ray Charles, Liza Minnelli, Elton John and Bob Dylan, among many others.

In 1998, CNN named him the Entertainer of the Century, beating out Dylan and Elvis Presley. In August 2017, he was awarded the 2,618th star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame.

He also appeared in more than 60 films, most notably Francois Truffaut's "Tirez sur le Pianiste" ("Shoot the Piano Player") released in 1960, which shot him to international fame. He also had starring roles in 1974's "And Then There Were None" (better known as "Ten Little Indians") and 1979's "The Tin Drum," which won the Academy Award for best foreign-language film.

His support for Armenia was another constant in his long life: He raised money after the devastating 1988 earthquake and campaigned for the 1915 massacre of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire to be formally declared a genocide, a move that Turkey vehemently opposed.

Aznavour was on the road right up until his death. His "farewell tour" began in 2006 and was supposed to go on for four years. In the end, it continued for more than a decade. His last concert was in Tokyo two weeks ago.

To give it all up would be the death of him, he told a French journalist in a broadcast interview Friday. Besides, he said, he and sister Aida, 95, had vowed to celebrate their centenary.

"My sister and I decided we're going to see 100 years. It's on the record. She doesn't have the right to go back on it, and neither do I," he said.

Despite his fame and ability to sell out concert halls, Aznavour remained self-deprecating.

In his autobiography, "Aznavour by Aznavour," published in English in 1972, he wrote: "What were my faults? My voice, my size, my gestures, my lack of culture and education, my honesty, or my lack of personality. My voice? I cannot change it. The teachers I consulted all agreed I shouldn't sing, but nevertheless I continued to sing until my throat was sore."

Aznavour is survived by his third wife, Ulla Thorsell, his sister and five of his six children.

Kim Willsher is a special correspondent based in Paris.

Armenian serviceman killed by Azerbaijani shooting

Categories
Official
Region

Contractual servicemen Haykaz Matevosyan, 1980, received a gunshot wound at the neck in the military positions of a regiment located in the north-eastern direction of the Armenian border at about 13:30, September 19.

Matevosyan died on the way to the hospital.

The Defense Ministry of Armenia extends deep condolences to the family, relatives and peers of the killed soldier.