Category: News

The Azerbaijani side used firearms of different caliber as it violated the ceasefire about 55 times at the line of contact with the Artsakh forces.

The rival fired over 1,200 shots in the direction of the Armenian positions on May 15-16.

The Azerbaijani side also used 60mm mortars (3 shells) and an antitank grenade launcher (9 shells) at different sections of the line of contact.

The rival used a Spike guided missile in the eastern direction, partially damaging one unit of military equipment. No casualties were reported.

Advanced units of the Artsakh Defense Army resorted to response actions to pressure the activeness of the rival and confidently continued with their military duty all along the line of contact.

Former adviser to Emmanuel Macron, when he was in Bercy, Astrid Panosyan is a favorite to be named France’s new Minister of Employment and Social Affairs,  reports.

The government is expected to be announced later today.

Mrs. Astrid Panosyan has been Chairwoman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer at Societe de Tayninh SA since September 1, 2015. Mrs. Panosyan has been the Chief Resources Officer and Member of the Management Board at Unibail-Rodamco SE since September 1, 2015 and serves as its Chief Executive Officer in charge of Central Operations.

She serves as the President of Doria SAS, Unibail Management SAS and Espace Expansion Immobilière SAS. She also holds the position of member of the Management Board of Uni-Expos SA.

She served as an Advisor and Member of the Cabinet of French Minister of Economy, Industry and Digital Affairs, where she was in charge of economic attractiveness and international investments. She served as the Secretary of the Board of Groupama S.A. until September 22, 2014 and General Secretary since 2011. She joined Groupama S.A. in 2002, where she held various senior positions in the international department, the department of strategy and the department of finance.

Previously, she joined AXA’s strategy department in 1998. She served as Head Officer of Strategy and Head Officer of Business Support & Development Asia-Pacific at AXA. She began her career at the AT Kearney. She serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Unibail-Rodamco Participations SAS and U&R Management BV. She served as a Director of Cegid Group SA from December 20, 2011 to November 27, 2014. She was a member of the Board of Directors at CEDID Group S.A. Mrs. Panosyan graduated from HEC Paris, IEP Paris, Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales de Montreal and Kennedy School of Government of Harvard University.

On 16 May Artsakh Republic President Bako Sahakyan visited the Talish village of the Martakert region, Artsakh President’s Press Office reports.

The President got acquainted with the activities being carried out in the village and gave corresponding instructions to the heads of appropriate structures for proper implementation of the activities.

Photo: AFP    

The UN Security Council has unanimously condemned North Korea’s latest missile test and warned of new sanctions, the BBC reports.

In a statement, the 15-member Council demanded that Pyongyang conduct no further such tests.

North Korea earlier said the missile it had tested on Sunday was a new type of rocket capable of carrying a large nuclear warhead.

The missile travelled some 700km (435 miles), reaching an altitude of 2,000km and landing in the sea west of Japan.

North Korea said it was a test of the abilities of a “newly developed ballistic rocket”.

In April, AGBU Lebanon announced its participation in the United Nations Global Compact Platform (UNGC), an international platform for development, implementation and disclosure of responsible and sustainable policies and practices. It calls for the participation of both businesses and NGOs to work toward a vision of creating “an engaged community that advances sustainability practices nation-wide.”

AGBU Lebanon is the first Armenian non-profit organization in Lebanon to take part in the UN Global Compact platform and supports the ten principles of the compact with respect to human rights, labor, environment and anti-corruption. “Our leadership believes that the key to reaching out to the Lebanese community at large lies in partnerships. This partnership follows in the footsteps of earlier partnership with the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Foundation of Human and Humanitarian Rights, Lebanon. With this commitment, we express our intent to support the Global Compact by advancing these principles and will make a clear statement of this commitment to our stakeholders and the public,” says Anita Lebiar, the executive director of AGBU Lebanon.

AGBU Lebanon believes it is possible and crucial to create and ensure sustainability, a belief that coincides with the vision of the Global Compact Network in Lebanon. “Our participation will reflect our values: envisioning the Lebanon we want; setting ambitious and achievable community targets; institutionalizing and mobilizing to make these targets happen; and implementing and monitoring them. We look forward to partnering with other UN agencies and being part of other platforms, the vision of which align with our scope of work. UNGC is just the start,” says AGBU Lebanon District president Gerard Tufenkjian. Through this partnership, AGBU Lebanon is also demonstrating a commitment to act responsibly; contribute to the development of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, such as quality education, gender equality and partnerships; and collaborate with national and regional stakeholders on various projects.

Officially launched at the UN headquarters in New York in 2015, UNGC is the largest sustainability platform with 9,000 business, 4,000 non-business and 85 local networks in more than 160 countries worldwide. It calls for institutions to embrace, support and enact, within their sphere of influence, a set of core values in the areas of human rights, labor standards environment and anti corruption.

Photo: REUTERS/Abduljabbar Zeyad

 

Cholera has killed at least 180 people in Yemen in recent weeks, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Monday, a day after authorities declared a state of emergency in the capital Sanaa and called for international help, Reuters reports.

Sanaa is controlled by the armed Houthi movement, which is aligned with Iran and fighting a Western-backed, Saudi-led coalition. More than 10,000 people have been killed and millions displaced in more than two years of war, which has also destroyed much of the country’s infrastructure.

Only a few medical facilities are still functioning and two-thirds of the population are without access to safe drinking water, the United Nations has said.

Dominik Stillhart of the ICRC told reporters in the port city of Aden that at least 180 people had died from the acute diarrhoeal disease since April 27, and that 11,000 more suspected cholera cases had been reported across the impoverished country.

Houthi authorities have said 115 of those who have died were in the city of Sanaa and its province.

According to the data of the Armenian Embassy in Egypt, there are no Armenian nationals in cholera-hit Yemen, Spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Tigran Balayan said in a Twitter post.

Phot: AFP

 

One of Pablo Picasso’s best-known portraits has been sold at auction in New York for $45m, the BBC reports.

Femme Assise, Robe Bleu (Seated Woman in Blue Dress) features one of his many lovers, Dora Maar.

During World War Two, the Nazis seized the painting but were intercepted on their way from Paris to Moravia by French Resistance fighters.

In 2015, Picasso’s Women of Algiers sold for $179m at Christie’s – a record for a picture sold at auction.

Seated Woman went to a US collector and six years ago it was sold for $26m.

Dora Maar and Picasso had an intense relationship for nine years. He painted Seated Woman in 1939, when he was 58 and she was 31.

President Donald Trump has defended his “absolute right” to share information with Russia, following a row over classified material, the BBC reports.

Mr Trump tweeted that he had shared “facts pertaining to terrorism and airline safety” and wanted Russia to do more against so-called Islamic State.

He met Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in the Oval Office last week.

US media said Mr Trump had shared material that was passed on by a partner which had not given permission.

In his tweet early on Tuesday, Mr Trump said: “As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety.

“Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against [IS] & terrorism.”

A report in the Washington Post said Mr Trump had confided top secret information relating to an IS plot thought to centre on the use of laptop computers on aircraft.

Mr Trump’s move is not illegal, as the US president has the authority to declassify information.

However, the action drew strong criticism from Democrats and a call for an explanation from his own Republican party.

Asbarez – In collaboration with Salmast Heritage Association (SHA), Cambridge Professor of Linguistics, Bert Vaux, conducted a week-long research project on the dialect of Salmast, also believed to be the language of Historic Armenia.

The SHA identified nine Salmasttsi speakers of the dialect, arranged for appropriate space and technological support for interviews, and recorded individual and group sessions. The research subjects were from Haftvan, Mahlam, Sarna, Payajuke, and Akhtkhan. Dr. Vaux studied phonetic as well as written vocabulary words and sentences, and recorded the variations between regional definitions and pronunciations. The totality of the information they shared was qualified as “priceless,” as native speakers of the dialect are aging and not easily accessible. Most importantly, the week-long field work on the Salmast dialect showed that many of the words and definitions brought to light by the nine Salmasttsi interviewees are not found in Muradyan’s dictionary, the foremost authority on Armenian dialects.

Linguistics Professor Vaux received his PhD from Harvard where he taught for nine years. He is an internationally recognized expert in his field, is fluent in several languages including Armenian, and has published several textbooks and numerous papers on such topics as Historical Linguistics, Phonology, Dialectology and related subjects. He enjoys working with native speakers to document endangered languages, especially dialects of Armenian, Abkhaz, and English.

Dr. Vaux’ partial list of publications includes: The Phonology of Armenian; The Armenian Dialect of New Julfa, Isfahan; Eastern Armenian, A Textbook; A Textbook of Western Armenian; Hamshetsma: The Language of the Armenians of Hamshen; The Armenian Dialect of Khodorjur; Vowel Harmony in the Armenian Dialect of Marash; Syllabification in Armenian, Universal Grammar and the Lexicon; Armenian Encyclopedia of Languages and Linguistics and more.

The  has listed American-Armenian designer Carolyn Rafaelian, a mother of three children, among the 50 Most Powerful Moms of 2017.

“A new addition to , Carolyn was dubbed leader of the jewelry world with an estimated net worth of $700 million. She was born into the jewelry business, but, initially, working in her parent’s Rhode Island factory served as punishment.

She told  that her Armenian-American parents would send her and her four siblings to “card earrings” when they fell out of line. Eventually, she started designing special talismans for friends, adorned with symbols and saints that offered spiritual protection. Those took off and Alex and Ani was born in 2004—so named for her two oldest daughters.

Carolyn gives back through her Charity by Design division, donating a portion of the proceeds from specially designed charms to more than 50 nonprofits, including March of Dimes, Living Water International and VH-1 Save the Music. Last year, they donated $2 million to UNICEF. When she started the company, she told DuJour she was honest with her then-young kids about what her life as a working woman was like.

“Let’s not forget, we are a strong species,” she said. “I think men have their challenges now, women have their challenges now, but it’s only a challenge if you want it to be a challenge. My father did not treat any of us differently, my brother or his girls. We did what we needed to do, we were all treated the same, and we made what we made out of life.”