Author: Yeghisabet Arthur

Gazprom Export has offered a guaranteed income from service on gas transit to Georgia, the company said in a .

A meeting between Director General of Gazprom Export LLC Elena Burmistrova and the Minister of Energy of Georgia Kakha Kaladze took place on January 10, 2017, in Minsk. The terms of gas transit to Armenia through the territory of Georgia, as well as gas supplies to Georgia were discussed at the meeting.

“Gazprom Export has made a package proposal to Georgia under optimal and mutually beneficial conditions, which will allow the Georgian party to raise guaranteed income from transportation services and improve the reliability of gas supply in Georgia,” Director General of Gazprom Export LLC Elena Burmistrova said.

Georgia serves as a transit country to transport Russian gas to Armenia.

Previously, Russia paid Georgia for gas transportation by supplying natural gas in the amount of 10% of the transported gas volume.

“In the global practice of gas trade they no longer apply payments with raw materials. The Russian party has proposed to the partners switching to money payments for gas transportation services on the basis of the rates used in the EU,” the statement reads.

“Gazprom has made an interesting proposal,” Georgia’s Minister of Energy Kakha Kaladze said, reports. He stressed that the offer ‘is a final one.’

Speaking to Imedi TV, Kaladze said the previous meetings had produced no result because of the difference between the positions of the sides.

The Minister called the latest offer “interesting” and said the decision would be made after discussions of the issue at the government.

President Serzh Sargsyan received today the RF culture figure, the well-known musician and artist of the Armenian descent, director and producer Stas Namin – Anastas Mikoyan, who has arrived to Armenia to participate in the events to be held in Yerevan on December 14-20 on the occasion of his 65th birth anniversary conducted in the framework of the Armenian-Russia cooperation.

Welcoming the celebrated artist to Armenia, President Sargsyan noted that the Armenian people have a great respect towards their talented compatriot who has always stood by our nation in difficult times and today celebrates his anniversary in Armenia through a number of cultural events which will raise the spirits and will introducing the public to exceptional pieces of art.

The President hailed years-long activities of Stas Namin in different areas and added that he carries on worthily the best traditions of his wonderful family.

Stas Namin noted that the visit to Armenia is a great honor for him and underscored that in his perception Armenia has always been a fairytale land. He said that he was truly happy to be able to demonstrate here his works.

“I was raised in the Armenian spirit and I am profoundly thankful for the invitation and warm welcome,” said the celebrated performer at the meeting with the President of Armenia.

Photo: Edmond Terakopian/PA

 

By Paul Daley

History is often best understood outside of the books that record it, when it is experienced in the lands that staged it, by its actors’ descendants.

And history, for all its serpentine connections and resonances, is what inspired two priests – Bishop Haigazoun Najarian and Deacon Nishan Basmajian from the Armenian Apostolic Church of the holy resurrection in Chatswood, Sydney – to recently undertake a 4000km pilgrimage deep into Warlpiri country in the Northern Territory.

At the remote community of Lajamanu – over a thousand kilometres from Darwin – Najarian presented the local community Baptist church with two ornately engraved Armenian “khachkars” or cross stones. The cross stones were blessed before a congregation of local elders, children, dogs and a delegation of non-Indigenous visitors – the culmination of three years’ planning by Australian Catholic University academic Judith Crispin.

During the service Najarian evoked the difficulties that the Warlpiri and Armenians faced, historically and currently. Both, he said, had been subject to massacres – the Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Turks and the Warlpiri by white settlers, miners and police – and they’d had to fight for the survival of their respective cultures.

Crispin explained how it took her three years to convince the Armenians – who had never been to remote Australia – to visit Warlpiri country.

“They’ve not been anywhere remote in Australia before so it was a big thing for them. I’m working on a project related to the Armenian genocide, which is how I know the priests, and I’ve been visiting Lajamanu twice a year for four years now … so it was really just a case of bringing together the two groups,” she said.

“It occurred to me that rather than just feeling sickened by my (Australian) government’s ongoing refusal to acknowledge the Armenian genocide, or to dignify Aboriginal people with a complete account of past massacres, I might possibly facilitate a mutually supportive relationship between Armenians and Warlpiri.”

After the service at Lajamanu, a mutual statement was hand-written and signed by the Armenian clerics and by the local pastor and Warlpiri elder, Jerry Jangala Patrick.

It reads: “Together we acknowledge the past massacres of Yapa people and other Australian Indigenous people and the genocide of Armenian people in 1915. We stand together today as brothers in solidarity.”

The Australian government, like many other liberal democracies, refuses to formally acknowledge the mass killings of Armenian people that began in 1915, as “genocide”. Turkey expends enormous diplomatic and political effort to ensure that countries such as Australia do not formally acknowledge the slaughter of the Armenians as genocide.

The beginning of the attempted annihilation of the Armenians coincided almost precisely with Australia’s participation in the British invasion and failed occupation of Gallipoli in April 1915. There are witness accounts by Australian prisoners of war of the Turkish mistreatment and killing of the Armenians – though this has never been part of Australia’s carefully cultivated Anzac story, a myth that relies heavily on continued warm relations between Ankara and Canberra.

Indeed, the Turks have lobbied successive federal governments intensively to ensure that mention of the Armenian genocide did not cruel centenary commemorative celebrations around the 100^th anniversary of the Anzac Gallipoli invasion. At one point the Turkish government threatened to ban Australian politicians who had formally acknowledged Armenian genocide from Anzac commemorations at Gallipoli in 2015.

In Australia, at least, the Anzac story has eclipsed the history of what happened to the minority Armenian Christians, about a million-and-a-half of whom died in Ottoman purges.

The Australian War Memorial, despite having ample material in its collections about the Turkish orchestrated mass murder of the Armenians, does not tell the story.

Anzac, more than any other, has, of course, become Australia’s foundation story – at the expense of so much pre- and post-colonial history. The story of the failed invasion and occupation on a distant finger of the Ottomans supersedes, in public and political consciousness, that other invasion – that by the British Empire of this continent on 26 January, 1778, that preceded frontier wars and battles across the continent that culminated in massacres of Indigenous people well into the 20th century.

While the continuing violence and oppression of Australian Indigenous people, and their social disadvantage, can be linked directly to the trauma of the frontier and the ensuing assimilation-ist policies, the last accepted “massacre” of up to 100 Indigenous people happened at Coniston in 1928.

Coincidentally the man who led the Coniston massacre, mounted constable George Murray, was a former Anzac light horseman who served at Gallipoli. His tactics of pursuit and “dispersal” of the Indigenes – including many Warlpiri – were an acquired part of his training as an Australian Light Horseman. Murray was, naturally, exonerated after the white establishment rallied around him (another shameful story, for another time, involving some of Australia’s most revered public families).

Anyway, such are the roots that link seemingly disparate strands of history.

Of his visit to Lajamanu, Najarian says: “I did not know what to expect – the only common thing I could share with the people was suffering, loss of land, a culture, tradition and identity … The catch was our suffering because of the genocide … and the suffering of the Aboriginal people.”

 

 

 

The International Olympic Committee has required Armenian weightlifter Hripsime Khurshudyan to return the bronze medal of the 2012 London Olympic Games.

“It’s painful to return the medal four years later, a medal that had been won as a result of hard work, but there are rules we have to obey,” Hripsime told a press conference in Yerevan today.

As for her future plans, Khurshudyan said “everything depends on the decision of the International Olympic Committee.”

“There is no decision on the terms of disqualification. I will continue to train until the decision is made.  If it is a long-term disqualification, I will end my career,” the weightlifter said.

Hripsime Khurshudyan said she would like to become an international referee in the future.

Manchester United’s Zlatan Ibrahimovic will have a statue erected in his honour after being named Sweden’s top player for a 10th successive year, the BBC reports.

The 36-year-old striker received his ‘Guldbollen’ – Golden Ball – award on Monday at a ceremony in Stockholm.

The statue will go outside Stockholm’s Friends Arena, where Ibrahimovic scored four goals against England in 2012.

Ibrahimovic said: “It’s huge for me. Most people do not get a statue until they have passed away.”

The Swede has won the award every year since 2007 – and also came top in 2005 before losing out to Arsenal midfielder Freddie Ljungberg a year later.

Ibrahimovic retired from international football after Euro 2016. He scored 62 goals in 116 games for Sweden and has won the domestic league title in four different countries.

Photo: Reuters

 

Japan has lifted the tsunami advisories issued after a 7.4 magnitude earthquake hit its eastern coast, the BBC reports.

The quake struck near Fukushima at about 06:00 local time (21:00 GMT Monday), triggering initial warnings of 3m (9.8ft) high waves. The waves which eventually hit the coast were much smaller.

Thousands were asked to evacuate the area and minor injuries were reported.

An earthquake and tsunami struck the area in 2011 killing 18,000 people.

That quake, one of the most powerful ever recorded, also caused a meltdown at the Fukushima nuclear power plant, where a massive clean-up operation is still going on.

Officials have said there is no sign of damage to the plant this time.

Photo: AFP

 

At least 73 people have been killed in a fuel truck explosion in Mozambique, officials say.

A government statement said people had been trying to take petrol from the truck when it exploded in the village of Caphiridzange in Tete province, near the border with Malawi.

More than 100 others were injured, some of them critically, it said.

One report said that the truck had crashed and people had been trying to siphon off fuel.

Announcing an investigation, information ministry director Joao Manasses said it was also possible that the vehicle had been ambushed by residents.

Government ministers are due to arrive in the area on Friday to oversee the rescue work and the inquiry.

The tanker had been carrying fuel to Malawi from the port city of Beira.

Mozambique is one of the world’s poorest countries, with more than half the 24 million population living below the poverty line.

It gained independence from Portugal in 1975 but is still suffering from the effects of a 16-year civil war that ended in 1992.

Photo: Mikhail Metzel/TASS    

Russia’s Economy Minister Alexei Ulyukayev has been accused of taking a bribe to endorse a state takeover, the BBC reports.

Russia’s main anti-corruption body, the Investigative Committee (SK), said he received a payment of $2m.

Mr Ulyukayev is the highest-ranking Russian official held since the 1991 coup attempt in what was then the USSR.

The SK said he had “threatened” to create obstacles for Rosneft’s operations when it took a 50% stake in another state oil company, Bashneft.

According to SK spokeswoman Svetlana Petrenko, “Ulyukayev was caught red-handed”, receiving a $2m bribe on 14 November for giving a favourable assessment of the Rosneft deal.

The apparent sting operation came after months of electronic surveillance, including phone-tapping, officials said.

The arrest was big news on Russia’s state-run TV channels, under the headline “Battle against corruption”.

On the morning of November 9, a diverse group of government officials, politicians, civil society representatives, students, educators, and members of the press joined U.S. Ambassador to Armenia Richard Mills, Jr. for an Election Watch Party at the U.S. Embassy.  As the results of the U.S. presidential and congressional elections were broadcast live from the United States, both American staff and our Armenian guests experienced the excitement of the democratic process in action as polls closed and votes were tabulated across the U.S.

More than 800 invited guests had the opportunity to interact with American diplomats and discuss the elections as real-time results were reported by various U.S. TV channels.  In addition to the live coverage, the Embassy provided a range of informational materials about the U.S. elections and the U.S democratic process.

In his remarks to the assembled audience, Ambassador Richard M. Mills, Jr. emphasized that “today is a special day, one that comes along every four years, when the United States reaffirms and celebrates its democratic tradition, 240 years strong, of calling upon the people to elect their next president.  As passionate and intense as this year’s election campaign has been, Americans know that as a result of yesterday’s vote, executive power will be transferred peacefully on January 20, 2017 in accordance with the U.S. Constitution and rule of law.  As Secretary Kerry said just last week, ‘we’re now engaged in the 58th free and open presidential selection process for the 58th consecutive time.  Compared to a lot of places in the world, that’s pretty amazing’.”

President Obama, who is nearing the end of his second and last term, will step down when his successor is inaugurated on Friday, January 20, 2017.  Ambassador Mills reaffirmed to the gathered Armenian guests that the excellent partnership between the U.S. and Armenia, which are celebrating their 25^th anniversary of diplomatic relations this year, will stay strong regardless of who is elected the next president of the United States.
“The U.S. remains committed to our shared goal of an independent and prosperous Armenia at peace with its neighbors, and regardless of who the next president is, the U.S. government and the U.S. Embassy will remain steadfast partners and friends to Armenia, as we work together to ensure the democratic and prosperous future that the Armenian people deserve.

Economies of the Europe and Central Asia region place among the top improvers in the World Bank Group’s ease of doing business report.

A total of 57 business reforms were carried out by the region’s economies in the past year, finds Doing Business 2017: Equal Opportunity for All, released today.

This year, Armenia is ranked 38 among 190 economies in Doing Business report 2017 and is 5 points up from last year’s Doing Business 2016 rank 43 (recalculated based on methodology changes and addition of one economy, Somalia). In Doing Business 2017, Armenia also shows 1.47 percentage points’ improvement in distance to frontier score –73.63 compared to the previous year’s 72.16 percentage points.

Armenia made it easier to do business in two areas measured by the report, including Getting Credit and Enforcing Contracts.  Specifically, Armenia strengthened access to credit by adopting a new law on secured transactions that establishes a modern and centralized collateral registry, and improved its credit information system by adopting a new law on personal data protection.

Armenia also made enforcing contracts easier by introducing a consolidated chapter regulating voluntary mediation and by establishing financial incentives for the parties to attempt mediation.

Four of the region’s economies, Kazakhstan (ranked 35^th in DB17), Belarus (ranked 37^th), Serbia (ranked 47^th) and Georgia (ranked 16^th),place among this year’s top 10 improvers, based on reforms undertaken. For a second consecutive year, Kazakhstan, with seven business reforms, led the world in the number of reforms implemented, together with Indonesia. In the region, Georgia and Belarus followed with five and four reforms, respectively. For example, Georgia strengthened minority investor protections by increasing shareholder rights and role in major corporate decisions and by clarifying ownership and control structures.

The top ranked economy in the region is the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, with a global ranking of 10. Thanks to past reforms it now takes an entrepreneur in FYR Macedonia only two days to start a business, which is significantly less than the regional average of 10 days.