Author: Yeghisabet Arthur

 

 

 

Results of e-voting will be the first to be announced after the polls close in Armenian parliamentary elections.

877 citizens of the Republic of Armenia – diplomats accredited to foreign countries and their families, as well as those on business visits and students – have participated in electronic voting.

Electronic voting was conducted beforehand. According to the Electoral Code, the e-voting starts nine days before the Election Day and ends 7 days prior to it. Thus, the voting took place between March 24 and 26.

The results will be summed up after polls close in Armenia. The final protocol will be prepared at the sitting of the Central Electoral Commission at 20:00.

Those participating in e-voting can chose between parties only with no voting through regional lists.

The Central Electoral Commission informs that 1,317,936 citizens or 50.93 percent of eligible voters cast their ballots in the parliamentary elections as of 5 p.m.

The total number of voters is 2,587,706. The polls opened at 8 a.m. and will close at 8 p.m.

The voting is taking place at 2009 polling stations in 13 electoral districts.

Multinational content delivery network (CDN) provider Cloudflare has announced that it plans to launch a series of new data centres across five continents, beginning with a facility in Yerevan, Armenia.

The new centre will be Cloudflare’s 103rd data centre globally. The company hopes that the new deployment will allow for greater speed, agility and security for approximately 6 million internet platforms, serving traffic to Armenia and neighbouring countries.

“Yerevan, one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, has a rich history going back all the way to 782 BC. Famous for its cognac, lavash flatbread, and beautiful medieval churches, Armenia is also home to more chess grandmasters per capita than most countries,” Cloudflare said in a statement.

 

Photo: Sertac Kayar/Reuters

 

About 2,000 people were killed and entire neighbourhoods razed in southeastern Turkey in 18 months of government security operations characterised by massive destruction and serious human rights violations, the United Nations said on Friday, Reuters reports.

The UN human rights office said in a report on the period July 2015-December 2016 that up to 500,000 people, mostly Kurds, had been displaced, while satellite imagery showed the “enormous scale of destruction of the housing stock by heavy weaponry”.

The UN investigators documented numerous killings, disappearances and torture, as well as other human rights violations. The most serious abuses took place during periods of curfew imposed for several days at a time.

The investigators were not granted access by Turkey and as of last month the UN had not received any formal response to its concerns, the report said.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein said in a statement on Friday that Turkey had “contested the veracity of the very serious allegations” in the report.

He was particularly concerned that Turkey appeared not to have launched any credible investigation into the hundreds of unlawful killings, adding that an independent investigation was both urgent and essential.

“It appears that not a single suspect was apprehended and not a single individual was prosecuted,” he said.

Armenia’s defense minister told Sputnik that Yerevan’s cooperation with NATO does not threaten its relations with Russia.

The Eurovision Song Contest has hit a major road bump, after 21 top level staff organising the event resigned, the BBC reports.

The Ukrainian Eurovision team say they were stripped of major responsibilities in December, when a new boss was appointed to the organising committee.

According to their resignation letter, they were “completely blocked” from making decisions about the show.

The EBU, which founded Eurovision, told Ukraine’s public broadcaster to “stick to the timeline” despite the upheaval.

It insisted the event would go ahead as planned in Kiev this May.

Asbarez – On Thursday, February 9th, the All-Armenian Student Association (All-ASA) coordinated the annual “Stain of Denial” silent protest against the continuous denial of the Armenian Genocide. The protests were simultaneously held by ASA chapters and affiliated organizations on their respective college and university campuses. “Stain of Denial” was initiated in 2011 as a silent protest in order to raise awareness of the ongoing denial of the Armenian Genocide and the need for recognition and reparations.

The students, faculty, and community members who participated on Thursday stressed that the Armenian Genocide is not an issue only reserved for the month of April, but it has a profound effect on Armenians every day. Whereas April 24th is traditionally the day that the world commemorates the Armenian Genocide, the memory of the genocide and its ensuing denial continues to be a daily struggle. The All-ASA prioritizes this campaign because Armenian students in college, where the free interchange of ideas and perspectives is encouraged, continuously find that the denial of their history is an injustice that they are blatantly faced with.

The participating ASA’s have continuously increased throughout the years. This year, Armenian students from various schools in the West coast, East coast, and Canada organized on their respective campuses. The participating schools in this years protests were: UC San Diego, UC Riverside, UC Los Angeles, UC Santa Barbara, UC Irvine, Glendale Community College, Pasadena Community College, Occidental College, University of Southern California, Cal Poly Pomona, Cal State Northridge, Woodbury University, Massachussets College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, Wentworth Institute of Technology, Emmanel College, Boston University, Northeastern University, Tufts University, Suffolk University, Yale University, and Princeton University. For the first time, the protests reached an international scope, with participation from the following Canadian universities: University of Ottawa, Carleton University, and the University of Montreal. Members from the following organization also participated: ARF Shant Student Association, Armenian Youth Federation, Alpha Gamma Alpha, and Alpha Epsilon Omega.

Thousands of Armenian students, community members, and faculty, both Armenian and non-Armenian, took a stand and reiterated that the Armenian Genocide is not just a “day in April,” but a year-round struggle for justice.

The campaign also included an online component, as those who were not able to attend raised awareness through social media, by incorporating the hashtags #StainofDenial, #ArmenianGenocide, and #DivestTurkey into their online posts. While the protests highlighted the history of the Armenian Genocide and the consequences that still continue, it also raised awareness of the #DivestTurkey initiative. This included education about resolutions that ASAs have passed through their student government councils, including both Armenian Genocide recognition and divestment bills, the latter of which targets over $70 million of University of California funds allocated toward the Turkish government.

Photo: Bryan Veloso

 

– Two days after their overtime loss to the New England Patriots in the National Football League’s (NFL) Super Bowl LI, the Atlanta Falcons announced on Feb. 7 that they have hired former University of Washington and University of Southern California (USC) head coach, Armenian-American Steve Sarkisian to replace Kyle Shanahan as the team’s offensive coordinator.

Born in Torrance, Calif. in 2974, Sarkisian is the youngest of seven children and the only one in the family born in California. Sarkisian’s older six siblings were born in Massachusetts. Sarkisian’s Armenian father was born and raised in Tehran, Iran before immigrating to the United States at the age of 18 to attend college.

Before taking the position with the Atlanta Falcons, Sarkisian served as an offensive analyst for Alabama in the College Football Playoff. He has also served as the head football coach of the University of Washington from 2009 to 2013 and the head football coach at USC from 2014 to 2015.

Sarkisian played college football as a quarterback at Brigham Young University (BYU) and professionally with the Saskatchewan Roughriders of the Canadian Football League (CFL).

On January 27, Edward Nalbandian, Foreign Minister of Armenia, had a meeting in Vienna with Lamberto Zannier, the Secretary General of the OSCE.

During the talks the Minister and the Secretary General reflected on a number of issues related to the OSCE activities.

Edward Nalbandian presented to Lamberto Zannier the efforts exerted by Armenia and the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs towards the implementation of agreements reached during the Vienna and St. Petersburg summits.

The sides  commended the activity of the OSCE’s Yerevan Office and attached importance to the operation of the only OSCE office in the South Caucasus region.

Transparency International and six of its European chapters have called on the three top officials of the Council of Europe to investigate serious allegations of corruption in that organisation, and expressed dismay at the apparent lack of effective internal anti-corruption mechanisms at Europe’s most important human rights institution.

Transparency International, the world’s largest anti-corruption group, demanded a strong response from Secretary General Thorbjørn Jagland to allegations recently reported by the European Stability Initiative (ESI) on corruption at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).

In that research, ESI alleged that Azerbaijan, among others have unduly influenced, over many years, Council of Europe activities and votes on human rights issues, including by allegedly transferring huge sums of money and other favours to key parliamentarians.

“Any investigation into breaches of the Code of Conduct and follow-up are left completely to the discretion of the President of the Assembly, and under full control of the parliamentarians,” states the letter, which was co-signed by six Transparency International national chapters in TI Czech Republic, France, Italy, Latvia, Spain and United Kingdom. An effective ethics corruption investigation mechanism must be independent and non-partisan.

Transparency International urged Council of Europe Secretary General Thorbjørn Jagland, Chairman of the Committee of Ministers Ioannis Kasoulides and President of the Parliamentary Assembly Pedro Agramunt Font de Mora to take the following concrete steps:

• Release a strong public statement affirming that there can be no place for corruption in the Council of Europe

• Support the establishment of a special integrity framework in line with best international standards in PACE to ensure adherence to high ethical standards by its members. A special integrity framework, including an independent office of Council of Europe ethics with investigators answering to an independent board would be a useful solution to this governance vacuum.

• Organise an independent investigation, led by an expert in such matters, into the circumstances surrounding the PACE vote on political prisoners in January 2013, and into the behaviour of members of the Azerbaijani delegation.

“It is crucial to develop a robust response of integrity on the issue of political prisoners,” according to the letter sent today.